The meagre crowds at many Asian Cup matches are down to too many corporate sales, according to the director of the local organising committee (QLOC).
The tiny gulf emirate was awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup last month and critics have been keen to see how they cope with the pressure of hosting the 16-team Asian Cup.
While the organisation has been smooth, crowds at many matches not involving the home team have been sparse. Figures released on Saturday showed 80 percent of the 427,320 tickets available for the group stage matches had been sold but only 62 percent of the total available seats had been used.
"We have to make sure that people attend the matches, that is very important," QLOC director Jassim Al Romaihi told Reuters in an interview.
"Some of the corporations who purchased the tickets, they did not show up. We were surprised.
"We will try in the future to avoid this and have them sold to the people and reduce the number for (sponsors and corporates)."
In the worst case of a low turn-out, just 2,002 people attended the Group B match at the Al Rayyan Stadium between two triple champions, Saudi Arabi and Japan, despite 8,379 tickets being sold at the 18,500 capacity ground.
Another feature of the crowds has been the very few neutral, local Qataris attending matches not involving their team.
The figures released on Saturday by the QLOC and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) revealed that approximately 10 percent of total capacity for each match goes to sponsors.
Ticket sales are up on previous editions of the premier Asian tournament in percentage terms.
Only 32 percent were sold for the 2007 tournament hosted by Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and 65 percent were purchased for the 2004 edition in China.
With few visiting fans in Qatar for the three-week long tournament the sales pitch has been aimed at the 1.7 million population.
The lavish hotels, grand malls and state-of-the-art facilities demonstrate the wealth in the gas-rich emirate but the cheapest tickets have been kept at a reasonable 25 Qatar riyal ($6.87) for adults and 5 Qatar riyal for children.
Despite the issues, Al Romaihi, a retired army officer and general secretary of the Al Sadd Sports Club, the most famous soccer team in Qatar, has overseen a smooth running of the tournament and did not mind the criticism aimed at his country.
"(People say) it is a small country, how will they organise, are they capable of organising it? These issues have to be raised by all these people and we don't blame them for it -- they have the right to say that.
"We as a local organising committee want them to come over, we encourage them to see the capability of Qatar and to show the whole world that Qatar is capable of hosting this very important event and the World Cup."
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