Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates have temporarily left their usual battle ground homes in Gauteng exchange fire in front of a buoyant crowd in eThekwini as the last two standing teams in the Nedbank Cup.
The build-up to the fixture has been dominated by safety concerns and an embarrassingly dysfunctional ticketing system that has left many supporters frustrated.
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In a joint press conference held on Tuesday, the PSL, through an auditor, said it had uncovered that there had been an over-issuing of tickets, which led to a system crash.
"The capacity of the stadium is 49,307 seats. It is at a reduced capacity. That is the capacity and the number of tickets that were issued," explained Bertie Grobbleaar, who had been called in as an independent auditor on the matter
"41,000 general access tickets went on sale. The minute the tickets opened, it was sold-out within 90 minutes. That caused a delay, a glitch, a crash - call it whatever you want to.
"The fact is that tickets went on sale, and the system allowed more people to make payments than there is capacity for."
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The explanation has done little to ease frustrations for sections of supporters, with some threatening to storm the stadium even without a ticket in hand.
KwaZulu-Natal police's Major General Phumelele Makhoba has assured that the SAPS is prepared to deal with such a scenario.
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"Indeed, when we deploy our intelligence as well as when we look at the history of what happened in the province in the past and the type of event we are about to host, we look at all angles, including the one that you are talking about (the possibility of protesters and stampedes)," Makhoba said at the media briefing.
"We have plans in place to deal with it. There are going to be areas that will be considered sterile, meaning that we are going to block roads and access to the stadium at certain points. But that will be dealt with in another statement.
"So, to answer you directly, yes, we have plans in place and yes, we have thought of what you are talking about."
The match is scheduled to kick off at 15:30.
