Soccer World Cup:The wait will be over for soccer fans at midnight next Tuesday, when the first block of World Cup 2006 tickets go on sale.
But excitement is set to turn to disappointment and anger at the news that just over a third of the total 2.93 million tickets available will be sold to ordinary fans.
"The fans are the defining factor at a World Cup," said Franz Beckenbauer, the German soccer legend and head of the German Organising Committee, at a press conference yesterday. Anticipating criticism about the half a million tickets reserved for sponsors, he said: "From what we know about the sponsors many of (their) tickets return to the fans by way of competition prizes."
Beckenbauer had stern words for everyone looking for tickets: "What I've said to everyone who's come up and asked me for tickets over the last few weeks is to get on the Internet, because we can't guarantee tickets to anyone."
A total of 1.12 million tickets will go on sale. Just 800,000 tickets will be offered for sale over the Internet on February 1st (at www.fifaworldcup.com).
With demand sure to exceed supply, these tickets will be allocated through a lottery and not on a first-come first-served basis.
Each fan will be able to order up to four tickets for seven games. The allocation of these tickets will begin on April 15th and applicants who are allocated tickets from this first block will receive a letter confirming the number and category of their tickets. Seat allocation will come later.
Another 300,000 tickets will be sold in five blocks. Block two will be on sale from May 15th to November 15th; block three from December 1st to January 15th, 2006; block four from February 1st-April 15th, 2006; block five from May 1st-July 9th, 2006. The method of distributing tickets will alternate: the first and third blocks will be sold by lottery, with the other three blocks sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi said the organisers were determined to re-sell as many unwanted tickets as possible so that sold-out stadiums really were full.
"Not every seat was filled at the last World Cup even when the matches were sold out. That was very frustrating," he said.
The ticket prices range from 35 for a first-round game up to €600 for the most expensive World Cup final ticket.
A nasty surprise awaits Irish fans trying to buy tickets online: the only credit cards accepted will be those issued by Mastercard, an official sponsor.
The only payment alternative is a bank transfer. Shipping charges for tickets inside the EU can be as high as €18.
The World Cup organisers expect to raise €200 million from ticket sales.
The German organising committee claim the tickets will be forgery-proof: the paper tickets will be distributed just six weeks before the championship begins; a tiny chip embedded in each one will contain individual match details and allow lost or stolen tickets to be blocked.
Meanwhile a German referee at the centre of a match-fixing scandal has denied he bet on matches he later refereed and allegedly manipulated.
"I have never bet on any of the matches that I refereed," said 26-year-old Robert Hoyzer, from Berlin, in Bild newspaper. "I will fight to clear my name."
The German Football Association (DFB) said yesterday they were investigating the allegations and were contemplating a blanket betting ban on all players, referees and club managers.Sponsors: 555,000
Football Associations: 468,000
VIP Tickets: 347,000
FIFA: 191,000
TV Rightsholders: 64,000
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)