By Mark Namanya
The folly of humanity is its resistance to new ways. People generally always want to do things in their comfort zone. Any attempt to introduce an alternative will be scoffed at. The thing with change is that it is a wave that can’t be stopped. It will come regardless.
For years, Ugandans have grown accustomed to buying match tickets and keeping them in their wallets or pillows for match day. Typically, you walk to a selling point, pay for the ticket, and then keep it safely until match day. While the era of selling tickets at the venue is now bygone, the mentality of buying a physical ticket is not.
Football fans in Uganda and the region would do well to appreciate the fact that next year’s 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which has been dubbed PAMOJA, is a competition of the continental governing body CAF. They have already directed that ticket purchases will be cashless.
There were many locals in Hoima who grappled with the method of buying tickets via MTN Momo because it sounded so alien. When the AFCON Secretariat’s Communication team appeared on Kabalega FM, nearly all questions were centered around access to match day tickets.
The simple reality is that Ugandans who intend to watch AFCON 2027 will use no other method but the cashless one to acquire PAMOJA tickets. It will be the same in Kenya and Tanzania. And that is what it is. There will be no option for physical tickets.
Fans ought to undergo a paradigm shift. Increasingly, more Ugandans are acquiring smartphones and embracing the internet age. The people who have resources to purchase bundles for social media sites like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram would do well to appreciate that buying a ticket takes less than a minute on their smartphones.
In fact, learning how to buy match tickets online will help broaden the knowledge of football fans and their gadgets beyond betting and WhatsApp communication.
More importantly, buying tickets online is a cheaper and more convenient option for football fans. Previously, a fan would have had to leave his home or work to go and look for a petrol station or designated selling point, which more often than not was a sizeable distance from his address.
And because Ugandans are accustomed to acquiring tickets on the eve of matches or on match day, it meant that there was always a mad dash at the 11th hour, which meant panic, anxiety, confusion, and sometimes stampedes.
With online tickets, challenges of such a nature are avoided. The ticket can be purchased on your bed, couch, sofa set, or during your lunch break. It is very basic comprehension and application of financial technology.
But there is more to why getting match tickets through fintech is a better option. It is safer. When a match ticket is acquired, it is sent to the buyer’s email. That ensures that the ticket is under lock and key. With the physical ticketing method, there is always the possibility of misplacing it. Or having it stolen. Or washing it in your clothes inadvertently.
Above all, sport is a dynamic industry whose parameters take new shapes and forms every day. What CAF has put in place – the cashless acquisition of tickets – is a method FIFA has long embraced.
Any attempt to disregard it is to waste valuable time on a process where you have no control.
Ultimately, CAF’s priority is to ensure that all PAMOJA fans have an experience of a lifetime. The measures they have put in place are to enhance the stadium experience of a fan. And that experience starts with the moment a fan purchases a match ticket.
