1,700 more Azkals July 3 match tickets go on sale Tuesday

The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) announced Monday morning that it will release 1,700 additional tickets for the July 3 World Cup Qualifiers match of the men's national football team, popularly known as the Azkals. Bonnie Ladrido, chairman of the local organizing committee, said via Twitter at about 11am Monday that Ticketworld will start selling the tickets tomorrow morning at 10am. There will be 400 upper grandstand tickets at P2,060 each and 1,300 red bleachers tickets at P206 each. "These tickets were reserved for Sri Lanka and new seats (were) created. Matagal nang ubos. Dagdag lang 'to," explained Rick Olivares, media officer of the organizing committee. Ladrido had earlier said to GMA News Online via phone interview that they decided to keep the total number of tickets at 13,000 to avoid the overcrowding that happened at the Pana-ad Stadium in Bacolod City last February 9 when thousands more jampacked the stadium to overflowing. Ladrido stressed that keeping the size of the crowd to a manageable level is one of the "lessons learned" from the PFF's hosting of last February's match at Pana-ad. He said the PFF wants to make sure that the fans who will come will enjoy the game without the overcrowding. He also said the reserved seating approach was also adopted at the Rizal Stadium so that fans do not have to line-up early because now they are assured of seats. -- OMG, GMA News