Minister for Sports, APEC and National Events, Justin Tkatchenko, confirmed this, saying that the trustee of the National Football Stadium are already talking with the Rugby World Cup to expand the two sides of the stadium.

This will bring up the capacity from 15,000 seats to 20,000 before October next year.

“We see that the demand for people to watch the game will be so high therefore, we are negotiating to expand the seat by another 5,000 to get enough people in to watch,” Tkatchenko said.

Claiming that rugby is our national sport, he said it will be disappointing for rugby fans in the country as the space is limited. However, they are doing their best to ensure that fans get to have a space to support their home team when it comes to game day.

The NFS trustees are looking to redevelope the wing stands and transform it with additional seats to enable more fans to add their voice to the atmosphere.

Moreover, Minister Tkatchenko said with the ticket sales, they have learnt their lesson during the FIFA World Cup on how they distribute it.

They will revisit it and make sure that it doesn’t happen to the Rugby World Cup, where the tickets gets sold the people on the streets.

“We are planning to have the tickets sold to one person per ticket and one person buying more than one,” Tkatchenko said.

However, they would like to make it fair for rugby fans so they are going to expand the capacity of the stadium as well as minimise ticket duplications.