World Cup ticketing fiasco

[Memnoch]

What a joke!! Giving tickets away for free when so many others can't get their hands on them. Typical FIFA old-boys-network bureaucracy.

Hope they sort this out and find out whoever stuffed this one up...


South Korean World Cup organisers are using "rent a crowd" policy to fill up empty seats admitted officials in Seoul on Saturday.

Thousands of local government officials and school children have already been called up in an emergency plan to prevent television pictures of empty seats being broadcast around the world.


On Thursday 1,900 volunteers were given free passes to watch the Senegal-Denmark match in Daegu.

"That has been done," admitted Chun Young-Il, spokesman for the Korean World Cup organising committee (KOWOC). "Some were done on a voluntary basis."

Since the start of the World Cup both Korean and Japanese organisers have angrily complained about ticket distribution and both have threatened legal action against FIFA and it's ticket agency Byrom.

But on Saturday FIFA president Sepp Blatter made his first public statement on the scandal and insisted that things were under control.

He stressed that FIFA were also unhappy over the problems but added; "now all parties involved have worked hard to solve the problem we can say that the situation is under control at the present time. We now look positively forward to the rest of the World Cup."

FIFA is in the middle of carrying out an investigation why seats that had been sold remained empty.

Fans have complained of paying for tickets but not receiving them. There has also been reports of fans turning up for matches to find several people have the same seat number.

Japanese organisers are selling tickets for the remaining first-round matches by telephone because of problems there.

For the remaining first round games, including Japan-Russia and Cameroon-Germany, JAWOC will sell 50 per cent of unsold tickets by phone, a JAWOC spokesman said.

FIFA had previously authorised ticket sales only through the Internet. Now only 50 per cent of unsold tickets will be available online, JAWOC said.

But even the phone 'solution' has run into problems.

Japan's phone networks had to be partially shut down Friday under the pressure of millions of calls from football fans seeking World Cup tickets for three games including the Japan-Russia match this weekend.

"There were two million calls in three minutes, jamming the lines," said FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper.

[Yorick]

An all too familiar story I'm afraid. If it's not the World Cup, it's the Olympics.

[ 06-08-2002, 07:13 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

[johnny]

maybe they gave those two countries that tournament too soon. Football is still a pretty new and upcoming sport overthere and most people don't even understand the game. In japan is baseball number 1 and the koreans aren't used to football in the weekends either. If they wanna avoid these things in the future, they should stick to either a european or a south american country, and you can be sure the stadiums are loaded.

[Kakero]

I can't understand why people want to pay for expensive ticket to watch the games in stadiums when they can watch it for free on television. sheshh..

[johnny]

Originally posted by Kakero: I can't understand why people want to pay for expensive ticket to watch the games in stadiums when they can watch it for free on television. sheshh..

if you ever were in a footballstadium you'll understand, the atmosphere is quite unique, beats the hell out of watching at tv

[Helspanth]

Originally posted by johnny: quote: Originally posted by Kakero: I can't understand why people want to pay for expensive ticket to watch the games in stadiums when they can watch it for free on television. sheshh..

if you ever were in a footballstadium you'll understand, the atmosphere is quite unique, beats the hell out of watching at tv[/QUOTE]I second that!

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Kakero: I can't understand why people want to pay for expensive ticket to watch the games in stadiums when they can watch it for free on television. sheshh..

I don't know why people cook meals, when they can watch a cooking show on T.V. Sheesh.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by johnny: maybe they gave those two countries that tournament too soon. Football is still a pretty new and upcoming sport overthere and most people don't even understand the game. In japan is baseball number 1 and the koreans aren't used to football in the weekends either. If they wanna avoid these things in the future, they should stick to either a european or a south american country, and you can be sure the stadiums are loaded.

What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with beaurocratic bungling. Football is immensely popular in Asia.

The China/Brazil match alone will be watched by 10 - 20 MILLION viewers.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by johnny: maybe they gave those two countries that tournament too soon. Football is still a pretty new and upcoming sport overthere and most people don't even understand the game. In japan is baseball number 1 and the koreans aren't used to football in the weekends either. If they wanna avoid these things in the future, they should stick to either a european or a south american country, and you can be sure the stadiums are loaded.

I don't think you quite understand the situation, johnny. It's a bit unfair to blame the Koreans and Japanese for not turning up - people have lined up for up to 10 hours in some cases to get tickets to anything. Have you ever been to Asia? If not, how can you comment on how popular it is over there? Unless it's from watching TV (rather than going to Asian stadiums during domestic Japanese league games).

The problem is not that the South Koreans or Japanese don't want to go to the games - there has been a massive case of demand exceeding supply in both those countries - the problem is that in most hosting arrangements such as this the FIFA organization gets 50% of all tickets for each game, so that they can sell through their licensed distributors (in this case, Byrom in the UK). JOWOC and KOWOC (the domestic World Cup bodies in South Korea and Japan) get the other 50%.

People have lined up for hours to get tickets to games - the problem is that the tickets that went out to FIFA to sell through to Byrom and their affiliates have NOT sold and have been slow to come back to South Korea and Japan. Most of these were allocated to corporates, sponsors, etc - NOT true fans, who have been unable to get their hands on them.

Having said that, there have been a few stuffups from a logistical perspective on the viability of selling on the Internet, etc. The planning could probably have been better.

I can just see this happening in Sydney for the Rugby World Cup - it will be IMPOSSIBLE for grassroots fans to get their hands on any tickets while corporates, sponsors etc will probably not turn up to some of the more mundane matches.

Unfortunately the World Cup is a huge revenue-making business and these things happen in sports events like these - but it's a pretty poor effort all round from FIFA and the ticketing agencies overseas to not get tickets back to Korea and Japan on time.

[ 06-08-2002, 07:49 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Kakero]

Atmosphere? let me see..

When any player score, the people from the back will push forward and if you are in front you'll get sandwich between the fence and the crowd.

and then there's this guy who sweat sooooooooo much and suddenly he took off his shirt and repeatly swinging it and causing the sweat to fly all over including into my coke. YUCK!!!!!!!!! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

that atmosphere? I see..