No scannable ticket, no entry: sold-out Soweto derby fans without tickets face arrest at FNB Stadium

Saturday's Soweto derby is sold out, and Stadium Management South Africa says anyone who comes to FNB Stadium without a valid ticket will be arrested.

Orlando Pirates host Kaizer Chiefs in the Premiership at 3.30pm, with about 90,000 supporters expected. Tickets went on sale at noon and were gone by about six hours later. Stadium Management South Africa chief executive Bertie Grobbelaar told 702's Bongani Bingwa this week that the allocation sold out in that window. Every ticket is digital. None were printed or sold over the counter, and they can only be opened in the MyTicket app, on the MyTicket website or from a mobile wallet.

No valid, scannable ticket, no entry.

That is Grobbelaar, as reported by Business Day. The kick-off is Saturday 31 October. Fans without a ticket are being told not to travel to the stadium at all.

Two checks before the turnstile

Fans will first be stopped for a visual ticket check at an exclusion zone around the stadium, meant to turn people without tickets away well before the gates. The second check is the electronic scan. Anyone whose ticket does not scan will be sent to a verification station.

Grobbelaar told 702 that turning people away at a scanner is not enough, because they simply walk to another entrance. Security and police will be removing ticketless fans, people with fake tickets and touts from the precinct, and he said there have to be consequences for that kind of criminal activity.

The roads around the stadium will be closed to general traffic.

A match ticket alone will not allow a private vehicle through the road closures.

Only cars with parking passes, residents and authorised vehicles will get through. Johannesburg metro police spokesperson Xolani Fihla urged fans to use the park-and-ride buses. A ticket gets a person to the turnstile question. It does not get a private car through the road closure.

Why the rules are this strict

Stadium Management South Africa has conceded that at least 15,000 more people got into FNB Stadium than should have at February's derby, Business Day reported. Previous derbies have also brought long queues outside the stadium, fake tickets, and ticket holders finding their seats taken.

Sports minister Gayton McKenzie told a press conference in Pretoria on 14 October that he would have stadium officials arrested if the chaos happened again. He held an oversight walkabout at the stadium with Stadium Management South Africa on Monday. The arrest line aimed at ticketless fans this Saturday sits next to that earlier threat, which was aimed at the officials if the February scenes were repeated.

The rugby template

The plan copies September's Springboks Test against the All Blacks at the same stadium, which drew 85,976 people with no reported safety problems. Stadium Management South Africa says it will use the same ticketing system, staff and technology, and more police than at previous derbies. Grobbelaar said the same safety officer and access-control officer worked on that Test and on the Scorpion Kings concert.

Grobbelaar named three differences between that crowd and a derby crowd. The rugby fans used public transport, they arrived earlier, and far fewer of them tried to get in without a ticket or with a fake one. More than 42,000 spectators took park-and-ride buses to the Springboks match, according to Fihla. The Prasa train service to the stadium is still not running, so organisers are adding other transport.

Grobbelaar told 702 that all systems are ready for "another epic derby". The practical instruction from the stadium is the short one. If the ticket does not scan, do not come.

Sources: Business Day, EWN and 702, The National and IOL Sport, TimesLIVE. The photograph is a Business Day image by Antonio Muchave, used here as illustration. It still needs a licence.