Commonwealth Ticketing Crisis; Damage in Main Games Stadium

(ATR) Delhi’s embattled Commonwealth Games has yet another crisis to overcome.

After a weekend of relative calm and a seemingly smooth opening ceremony, competition opened Monday, and the storylines out of India at last focused on sports.

That didn’t last long.

Rumors of meager attendance at a netball game here and a field hockey match there quickly became something more.

Now hard reports of mostly empty stadiums are pouring forth from Delhi, forcing organizers to address the issue Tuesday during their long-awaited press briefing.

Organizing committee chair Suresh Kalmadi and Commonwealth Games Federation president Michael Fennell cancelled the traditional eve of Games media appearances amidst the turmoil that plagued Games buildup.

The two-day delay only meant more fires to put out during Tuesday’s joint news conference as logistical nightmares once again overshadowed the athletes themselves.

The bombshell came when Kalmadi admitted he is considering giving away tickets in order to fill the stands.

"We are working on the children from schools. Already steps are being taken in that direction," he told assembled media."And also from the low level of society."

Only 600,000 of the available 1.5 million tickets have sold, figures that seemed to worry but not alarm Fennell.

"We like to know that the seats are filled," he said, explaining that attendance is just one of many Games elements that include TV coverage and news reports.

"For the athletes and for ourselves we do like to see spectators' seats filled," Fennell reiterated.

CGF CEO Mike Hooper also joined in the briefing to refute claims that he lived extravagantly on the organizing committee’s dollar during the run-up to the Games and neglected his enforcement of key deadlines.

"It's just simply not true," said the man whohas been burned in effigy throughout Delhi for reportedly criticizing the host nation.

Elsewhere Tuesday, an errant bomb threat in the Commonwealth Village and trouble at the main Games venue kept organizers scrambling to preserve a competition schedule only recently rescued from doubt.

BBC Sport reported Tuesday that the track and infield at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium suffered harm during Sunday’s opening ceremony.

Now contractors must fix the damage caused by too many dancers and too heavy equipment, but delays in security clearance meant a late-day race to repair the turf, re-lay a portion of the track and repaint some of its lines.

Athletics is slated to open Wednesday – at least for the moment.

Written by Matthew Grayson.