FEU's Montinola to address game fixing, ticket scalping in UAAP

MANILA, Philippines – Game fixing and ticket scalping are the two most serious problems that Anton Montinola of host Far Eastern University (FEU) hopes to address during his tenure as UAAP president. Montinola said that though game-fixing is hard to prove he also asked the seven other member schools to inform their players, coaches and other officials of the issue in order to combat the problem, which is caused by gambling based on results of the league’s games and players scores. “This is just sad," said Montinola referring to game fixing in the league. “We are just a collegiate league and I don’t know why we have to deal with this. But this is the current reality." It can be recalled that last UAAP season, FEU forward Mark Baracael was shot near the FEU campus in Morayta. Police reports said that Baracael was shot because he spilled the beans against squad members involved in game fixing. As for the scalping, Montinola said that the only way to solve this is to increase the number of tickets. “You cannot go against the (law of) supply and demand." “If there are very few tickets and demand is high, definitely ticket prices tickets will skyrocket." Prices of UAAP tickets bought from scalpers during the Ateneo-La Salle match changes every season and fans are willing to pay as much as P10,000 for tickets worth P500. To address this, Montinola is suggesting to sell two sets of tickets during the August 9 La Salle-Ateneo match. The Green Archers-Blue Eagles match is set at 1:00 p.m. which will be followed by the FEU-UE tussle at 5:00 p.m. Montinola said that after the Ateneo-La Salle match, the Big Dome will be cleared of fans before the gates are opened again for the FEU-UE game. “We’ll have two sets of tickets for August 9. In short, we will double the supply. And since we’re talking about the law of supply and demand, then the prices should go down," Montinola explained. But Montinola added that even with this new tactic, there is no assurance that ticket prices will not go up. “It’s a fact that even if you hold the game at 3:00 p.m. people will still watch it. But we want to do something about scalping. And we at FEU, since we only host this once every eight years, want to give it a try. This is our chance. We think it will work. If it doesn’t, then at least we tried," he said. – GMANews.TV