‘Guys, you’re deceiving us,’ ‘the stands were packed during the concert,’ ‘you must leave this organization’: Reaction to the FFA Statement

Dear FFA, Your message contains many details, but several questions remain unanswered. This was stated by Tigran Keyan, the head of the NGO ‘Driver's Friend’ on his Facebook page. “1) If you really anticipated that the demand for tickets would be this high (hundreds of thousands of requests), what preventive measures did you take to ensure that the website would not crash and that this disgraceful situation would not occur? 2) If you anticipated it, why were there no alternative solutions implemented, such as the introduction of a subscription system that would solve such issues and reduce illegal ticket reselling on the market? 3) If you did not foresee any of this, then my only statement is this: you simply do not possess management skills and with this approach, you should leave this organization,” wrote Keyan.

Facebook user Gagik Konjoryan also commented on the topic, stating: “This photo was taken at yesterday's concert: For 10 years, we've been convinced that some of the stands of the Hrazdan Stadium are damaged and it is impossible to organize football matches here. But just look how it can be used for a 4-5 hour concert.”

“Now the question is: Guys, either you have been deceiving us for 10 years about the impossibility of organizing football matches here since it is a fact that the stands were also full during the concert, or the stands are indeed damaged, and knowing this, you allowed 30,000-35,000 people to participate in the concert, standing or sitting on them for 5-6 hours, risking their lives. Do you have any comment, FFA? Is the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Emergency Situations Department currently assessing whether the stands are damaged or not?” wrote Konjoryan.

It should be noted that earlier, the FFA had issued a statement, saying: “The ‘Republican’ Stadium can accommodate a maximum of 14,000 fans. A total of 470,000 people applied for tickets. Each fan could buy no more than two tickets, hence it was possible to meet the demands of about 7,000 applications. Naturally, around 463,000 fans may complain that they could not purchase a ticket.”