Football: BiH - Lithuania sold-out within hours

Zenica's Bilino Polje will host the World Cup Qualifying
fixture between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lithuania on
Tuesday October 16.
(Source: Panoramio.com)

In somewhat farcical circumstances, it took just a number of hours on Monday for all tickets to be sold for next week's World Cup Qualifier to be held in Zenica between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lithuania.

After going on sale at Zenica's 'Centrotrans Eurolines' outlet at 9 o'clock in the morning, all tickets for the October 16 fixture had been snapped up by midday - mostly by scalpers.

Restrictions upon purchasing tickets were relatively light, with people able to buy up to five tickets at a time without any need of showing identity cards. Unfortunately - and, apparently, not for the first time - this allowed scalpers to exploit the system by visiting the store back-and-forth several times to purchase a large number of tickets.

However, for those still wanting to attend the match, it is not all doom and gloom. There are still plenty of tickets available on the 'black market'.

As I discovered first-hand today, a number of scalpers are selling tickets for around double the price of the original cost, and only a matter of metres away from the door of the 'Centrotrans Eurolines' store!

Now, it has to be said, it is rather unbelievable that people are able to get away with ticket-scalping, and so publicly.

There are no two ways about it: scalping rips off real fans.

It is time for the authorities to stamp-down on such blatant acts as this.

It is, also, time for the ticketing companies to bring their selling procedures into line; therefore allowing more people to purchase tickets, and at normal prices!

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All a bit of a shame, as I was planning on taking my partner to her first ever football match.

Oh well, looks like it will be another game in which we watch it from our couch with, maybe, a drink and bowl of chips!

Good luck, Bosna.