The Great Ticket Mess

January 19th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

I had this dream the other night that the World Cup kicked off and there was no one in the stands watching.

My dream might not be too far from reality.

One of the biggest stories in countries around the world is the demand for World Cup tickets. FIFA has received more than 4.5 million requests for the remaining 250,000 tickets. National federations are receiving requests that far outpace their supply. Even some of the tournament’s poorest and most remote countries have sold their entire allotment.

While ticket demand is the front page story, the story that has most fans grumbling is how the tickets are being distributed. In Trinidad and Tobago there have been allegations of cronyism. In the United States, some fans are threatening a lawsuit because of US Soccer’s unfair allocation process. In England, deep pocket corporations are scoring the tickets. And you can bet many more questions will be raised once FIFA releases the results of its latest lottery.

Than there are the people who have tickets but can’t go or have no interest in watching Tunisia play Saudi Arabia. Because it is so concerned with illegal scalping and profiteering, FIFA is printing the names of the ticket holders on the tickets. It also is setting up a website that will allow people to legally give back their tickets – minus the processing fees they have already been charged.

I can’t help but think that this is going to be a mess and that many people are going to end up eating their tickets. I could also see the corporate fat cats not showing up for games. All of which could lead to the ultimate irony. In a tournament where a ticket is tougher to come by than precious metals, seats in the stadium may be easy to find.

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Brazil fan

I’m one of those people who got one ticket — Serbia and Montenegro vs Ivory Coast.

Bummer of a ticket for a match I have no interest in.

Go for the sake of going? I wouldn’t mind except the price of accommodation is so high it is just not worth it.

Have you seen all the Internet sites selling tickets?

I asked one of them (claimed to be a big and very popular site) how they can assure me that I will be allowed into the stadium if I bought tickets from them.

They claimed they got their tickets from sponsors of the WC and the tickets came with no names printed on them and no data on the chip.

Now, my great annoyance is:
1) Why did FIFA give so many tickets to sponsors who are in turn feeding the touts. Does this not mean that FIFA indirectly is the one that’s giving the touts their business?

2) Is there some conspiracy to drive the many real fans all over the world (as opposed to the rich sponsors etc) to reach for the hospitality packages which cost a bomb because that becomes their only legal way of getting an authentic ticket from FIFA?

What can FIFA be thinking of? From where I stand it looks like the governing body is only thinking about money and profit.
Ecuador Fan

I have tried in the past three stages to get a ticket through fifa without any success. I am being forced to look at the ridiculously expensive online sites(never with certainty their tickets are real) after having gone to every home win for Ecuador. I can get tickets from a friend of a friend who is connected with A.C. Milan or another who is connected with Coca Cola, whose families got dozens of tickets(and for free, mind you)and who are now making about a referee’s yearly salary in selling them. Its funny how fifa does not mention anything of the tickets they give out to their ‘corporate partners’, many of whom if they even attend will be much more interested in chatting with their neighbors and sipping expensive drinks rather than following the game. Then there are more problems when the general portal will sell any tickets to anyone(even with the security code). Why not have a certain allocation to the citizens of the countries participating? And I am not talking about the direct allocation given already, since those tend to go to the expensive packages mentioned above, that only the wealthy(and typically less passionate) fans of non-european teams can afford. One thing is to see empty stadiums; another is to see 40,000 Germans lightly clapping at Iran vs. Angola.
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