Sabotage or a technical breakdown?

The webpage biletebi.ge that was authorized for selling tickets for the Barcelona –Seville European cup football match to be held in Tbilisi on August 11 has failed to fulfill its obligations.

Now the law-enforcement bodies might become interested in the failure and they might have to specify whether the downfall was a technical breakdown or an act of sabotage.

From now on, the football tickets for Georgian fans will be sold at Tbilisi Dinamo Arena booking offices while the foreigners will be able to purchase them through the above mentioned online site again.

Biletebi.ge said 4,300 tickets were available now for foreign supporters.

But fans in Georgia would need to wait until next week to purchase football tickets. It was said that 22,000 tickets would be printed in the coming days and would be available for purchase at the box offices.

Confusion surrounding ticket sales began when the biletebi.ge, the sole ticketing website, failed when tens of thousand football fans tried accessing the site at the same time on June 22. The website has been plagued with issues since then.

After the crack down, the Football Federation representation stated that it might have been sabotage and appealed to the law-enforcement bodies to investiage the issue.

Meanwhile the majority member Davit Lortkipanidze said that problems might have been caused by the Football Federation itself and also addressed the relevant bodies to investigate the connection.

The case itself does not give a good impression of the national image. When one takes responsibility it should be guaranteed that it will be able to carry out its obligations.

If the biletebi.ge site was unprepared to carry out the action it should not deal over the selling of the tickets for such an important game.

On the other hand, if tickets are sold at higher prices in the future for similar games, it will strengthen the doubts that the situation was artificially caused.

All in all, the issue is negative that reflects negatively on the state image and on the nerves of those wishing to attend the game.