Pretoria - A limited number of free tickets are still available for the much-anticipated CAF African Women Championship match between Banyana Banyana and Nigeria at Daveyton's Sinaba Stadium today.
Senior Media Officer at Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Sam Modiba said they had been distributing the tickets in their possession on a first come first serve basis from 8am. The match kicks off at 11am.
He said the free tickets were being distributed at the Daveyton Customer Care Centre located at corner Eiselen and Mocke streets and Etwatwa Customer Care Centre located at corner Eiselen Street and Chris Hani Drive.
Entry to the tournament is free to the public, but in terms of the tournament's safety and access control regulations, spectators attending the games will need to enter the stadium with pre-printed tickets.
Tickets are also available at Computicket, House and Home, Shoprite, Checkers and Checkers Hyper outlets countrywide.
For any particular ticketing phase (group stage, semi-finals, third place and the finals) spectators can collect a maximum of four tickets for any match day in that phase.
Tickets are complimentary and cannot be sold. Unaccompanied minors will not be issued with match tickets.
In order for spectators to access any of the matches they would have to produce a ticket at the security checkpoints at the match venues of Daveyton's Sinaba Stadium and Tembisa's Makhulong Stadium.
At the Sinaba Stadium, 20 000 tickets will be issued per match day and at Makhulong Stadium 10 000 tickets will be issued per match day.
On match days when there are double headers at Sinaba Stadium only one ticket will be issued and spectators will be able to witness both games.
Although the match is scheduled for a weekday morning kick-off, large crowds are expected to make their way to the stadium to support Banyana who started their campaign on a winning note by defeating Tanzania 2-1 at the same venue last Sunday.
The host nation go into the match ranked number three in Africa and 57th on the FIFA world rankings compared to their number one ranked West African opponent, who occupy 28 spot on the world list, but Banyana coach Augustine Makalakane will be the first to acknowledge that rankings and other statistics mean little when it comes to a CAF African Women Championship 2010 fixture.
"Banyana Banyana hold no fears as far as playing Nigeria is concerned. The match has the potential of being one of the highlights of CAF African Women Championship 2010 and we want to make our South African sports-loving people proud," Makalakalane said.
The Banyana Banyana squad was on hand to witness Nigeria's 5-nil win over Mali at the Sinaba stadium on Monday. Makalakalane and his coaching staff would have done much strategising to find ways and means to shut down the Nigerian midfield and lethal strike-force.
But the Queens of Diski, as Banyana are affectionately known, have quality players of their own and the Nigerian team can expect the 90 minutes of match time to feel that much longer as they try to nullify the goal-scoring aspirations of Banyana Banyana's African Player of the Year, Noko Matlou with her 35 goals in 41 international matches.
