SEN Chief Broadcaster Gerard Whateley has slammed the conventions of the Melbourne Cricket Club for allowing there to be an area of unfilled seats during last night’s Preliminary Final.
A crowd of just under 95,000 filled the MCG for Collingwood’s win over Richmond, but a visible empty area in the MCC was clear.
“Is it time for the MCC to take some responsibility to ensure the ground is full when demand is so high and the conventions of the past that they have in place, it’s time to give those up and make sure those tickets are sold either first to your own or to the 50,000 people desperate to be in those last 5,000 seats,” Whateley told SEN’s Crunch Time.
“How would you manage it? That’s for the MCC to decide.
“I think it’s time to rally their membership and say if you want a ticket to get to this game, you have absolute rights to it, but you must have bought them by 2pm Thursday afternoon.
“If you haven’t, we will sell them to the rest of the fans. It’s terrible last night to have 94,959 in and Margaret Court Arena is overflowing with Collingwood fans just wanting to be in the area and can’t occupy those seats.
“It’s a game that should’ve had 100,000 people at it, it falls directly at the feet of the MCC and they have through convention kept this in place.
“It’s totally unacceptable. Those seats have to be filled. It’s not too much to ask their members to commit by Thursday afternoon and then to let the rest of the people fill the last 5000.”