President of football club Shakhtar Donetsk Rinat Akhmetov has repeated his proposal to President of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU) Hryhoriy Surkis to buy from the federation all the tickets for the World Cup play-off match between Ukraine and Greece for $1.5 million, despite an initial refusal from the FFU.
Akhmetov said this in a statement released on Nov. 16.
"I’m very disappointed by your [the FFU president’s] position. Frankly speaking, I expected a thoughtful act from you, which would have helped the fans buy tickets at affordable prices and Ukraine’s national team get ardent support from a packed stadium in a decisive match," he said.
Akhmetov said that such a decision had been stipulated by Surkis’s desire to earn $4.6 million.
"Unfortunately, it turned out that you don’t care whether the Donbass Arena is full or not on November 18," he said.
At the same time, Akhmetov repeated his proposal to buy out from the FFU all 50,000 tickets for the Ukraine-Greece match.
On November 15, Akhmetov proposed to Surkis that he buy from the FFU all of the 50,000 tickets for the Ukraine-Greece match for $1.5 million, as in his opinion, the FFU had set extremely high prices for tickets.
"After paying $1.5 million to the FFU, Shakhtar will be able to gain a bit over $353,000 after selling all of the tickets for the match at the Donbass Arena. The difference of $1.147 million will be covered using our club’s funds," Akhmetov said, adding that those who have already bought tickets at higher prices should get compensation for the difference in prices.
However, Surkis described such a proposal as a "smear campaign." In his opinion, the "commercial proposal" from Shakhtar represents only an insignificant part of the funds that the FFU is accumulating by itself to finance the national team and football projects.
He also said that if Akhmetov really wants to "organize a charity event," he could buy out the tickets at prices that have already been set and "do with them what he wants."
The result of the Ukraine-Greece match will determine whether Ukraine’s national team qualifies for the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
