Kids army drafted into to fill empty seats

DOHA: Asian Games organisers have enlisted 20,000 youngsters in an effort to fill the acres of empty seats which have blighted the first few days of competition.

Children have been brought in from every school in Qatar under a scheme known as Cheerleaders. 

But Games chiefs denied that the move was a panic measure introduced after many events were snubbed by locals.

"There are 20,000 students from all the schools in the country involved. We want them to witness the athletes and the competition," said Games spokesman Ahmed Abdulla Al Khulaifi.

"It has got nothing to do with empty seats. We have had good sales of tickets and some events are sold out."

Al Khulaifi claimed that events such as swimming, table tennis and badminton were sold out. But there were plenty of open spaces in other arenas.

The men's football match between Bahrain and Vietnam at the Al-Gharrafa Stadium attracted less than 100 people.

On Monday, the team tennis tournament got underway with the showpiece 4,000-capacity Khalifa Complex centre court virtually deserted except for a battalion of school children. That was despite the home team kicking off the day's action.

Meanwhile, in an effort to eradicate the crowd trouble which scarred Qatar's 1-0 defeat in the football tournament against Uzbekistan on Saturday, fans will now be banned from taking plastic bottles into the stadium.

A shower of bottles rained down onto the Al Sadd pitch when Qatar had a goal disallowed on the stroke of half-time.