Selling football tickets

I read with disappointment the news on the mayor of Surabaya's "breakthrough" regarding ticket selling strategies (Kompas, Nov. 27, 1996). By virtue of his decree, he is requiring all his subordinates to buy football tickets each time Persebaya (the Surabaya Football Association) plays at their stadium. He has even gone further by making village chiefs act as ticket brokers. I hope that these chiefs have good salesmanship, without necessarily exercising their power in selling the tickets. The final blow to this already saddening situation was the fact that one of the local representatives considered the mayor's practice legal, saying that the mayor, in his capacity as the chairman of Persebaya, had to raise funds by any means, and therefore, his decision was legal.

Indeed, trying to promote football is good, but forcing people to buy tickets is ethically unjustifiable by any reasons whatsoever. What is the difference between his action and the conduct commonly adopted by a bus-ticket broker who, in an intimidating manner, convinces the customers to buy tickets. There is, however, a significant difference. The victims of a bus-ticket broker, after all, are those who have the initial intent of traveling by bus. In contrast, the mayor's victims include those who dislike football, let alone buying football tickets. Whose action is more tolerable is for the readers themselves to decide.

However, in my view, such a decree represents arrogance and indifference on the part of the mayor himself, as well as people's local representatives, since they did nothing to prevent such a situation from coming into being. The argument made by one of the people's local representatives also didn't make any sense.

ANANG FACHRUDIN

Jakarta