The Grid had already started selling tickets to their members, referring to their opponent as Rayo Yukon
In what has already been a bad month for Front Offices and supporter relations, comes a barely believable story from Oklahoma.
The US Open Cup draw has paired NASL Rayo OKC with USL’s Oklahoma Energy. Rayo are an affiliate club of Rayo Vallecano, a much respected and traditional club that plays in the suburb of Vallecas in Madrid. The Energy were once the affiliate club of Sporting KC and have former SKC favorite Jimmy Nielsen as head coach.
When the draw paired the two at Rayo’s Miller Stadium ground in Yukon, OK, the scene was set for a cup derby, the first of such importance in Oklahoma.
The home Front Office and the away Supporters Group, the Grid, seemed to be doing everything right
Rayo Oklahoma originally offered the Grid, $9 tickets to watch from a designated supporters section in the northeast quarter of the east grandstands.
Rayo went back on their previous ticket plan
All was going well. The Grid had reportedly sold 71 of their 100 allocation to their own members in advance before the Rayo Front Office did an amazing about turn.
The Grid’s Joe Pugh takes up the story:
“We’ve had this set up for two weeks. We had agreed that we would buy 100 tickets from them in bulk. They had our credit card information. They had everything they needed. 5 mins prior to the tickets going officially on sale, they suddenly canceled our agreement.
Baffled Energy supporters tried to find out why.
The first clue came in a bizarre tweet from Rayo:
“Due to the nature of some of the language and the general sentiment expressed by the leadership of the Grid in recent social media posts providing information on how Grid members would be able to acquire tickets to the U.S. Open Cup game at Miller Stadium, Rayo OKC management has decided to not provide the Grid the ability to purchase a block of group tickets for the game.”
Something even more disturbing was in the second half of the tweet.
The home club advised Energy fans including Grid members to buy tickets individually, directly from Rayo for seats that would be in the same areas as home fans.
“Grid members and all Energy FC fans will still be able to purchase tickets to the game by going online at www.rayookc.com or at the box office,” the announcement continued.
In short, rather than have a designated section for the visiting fans, Rayo OKC had decided to abandon segregation for the derby while going back on their word, and incidentally charging Energy fans twice as much for the tickets as originally promised.
Such a move could only serve to further ramp up the tension between the home club and the away supporters and then double-court the consequences by putting everyone in one area.
So what egregious offence could the Grid have committed to cause Rayo to go back on their word as well as risk the security of their own as well as visiting fans?
Pugh confirmed that the reason for Rayo’s umbrage was even pettier that one might have imagined. It wasn’t referring to then as Rayo Yukon or gloating about Vallecano’s relegation from la Liga.
In their “Fun Facts” section on the Grid website, they posted the words:
“Rayo OKC plays on an artificial turf field assembled on top of an existing turf football field. The soccer pitch is made up of hundreds of 5′ x 5′ square pieces. It’s unsafe for play.”
When the Rayo FO contacted Pugh, they specifically pointed out those last four words as the offending phrase, and so they retaliated by withdrawing the designated away section and forcing supporters of both clubs to sit in an unsegregated stadium in a local derby.
Commendably, Energy coach Jimmy Nielsen declined to ramp up the security implications of the decision but could not fathom why his rivals would not see another downside of the decision:
The jibe that caused Rayo to abandon away section and put spectators at risk
“We have very smart fans (at Energy) and they’re not going to cause any trouble. Our fan group is smart and they are going to take care not to be drawn in.
“What I find, very strange is that that Rayo don’t want to be in a position to create the best possible atmosphere. You’re killing that (by not having designated fan sections).”
Reacting specifically to the playing surface complaint against his group, Pugh noted:
“What’s really disheartening about this is that our comment about unsafe field conditions and concern for player safety is why we can’t buy tickets as a group.
“They’ve had complaints about nails or a nail on the pitch. There’s been a few injuries and complaints from other teams. All we did was echo that concern.
“With that being said, I now fear not only the safety of the players, but the safety of the fans as well by not segregating the two supporters groups.”
The match is scheduled for June 1st.
We have contacted Rayo Oklahoma asking for comment and were waiting for a reply at the time of posting.
Editorial: After Oklahoma, fans have the right to ask “who is in the room when decisions are taken?”
