Poor Commonwealth Games crowds concern chief

Commonwealth Games chief Mike Fennell today admitted he was concerned about the lack of crowds at venues on the opening day of the Games.

There were large areas of empty seats at a range of venues yesterday including swimming, gymnastics, badminton and hockey.

Fennell said: "There is one area which is causing us some concern. Yesterday it was quite clear that a number of venues did not have a lot of spectators.

"We are working with the organisers on this on how these venues can be filled. We do like to see spectator seats filled."

But Delhi 2010 organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi insisted that crowds would quickly pick up.

He said: "We have set up ticket box offices in every stadium. There were queues (for tickets). I don't think this (empty seats) will continue for long.

"There were problems yesterday but we have improved our systems and all the stalls (ticket box offices) are up today."

Kalmadi was asked if schoolchildren might be given the chance to see some of the sporting action if ticket sales continued to be slow.

"We are working on that," he replied.