Fifa’s empty promise

Empty seats in a stadium. Photo: zahidul

Fifa made a commitment to having full stadiums for every game at this summer’s World Cup, but what they delivered was another empty promise.

Jerome Valcke, Fifa general secretary, told Reuters there would be no spare seats at the tournament:

“There will not be any empty seats in the stadiums.” (Jerome Valcke, April 2010)

Valcke also said 40 of the 64 games were sold out despite Danny Jordaan, 2010 World Cup chief executive, admitting earlier in the year that tickets were not selling:

“Less than 100,000 tickets have been sold to fans in the six African countries competing in the finals.” (Danny Jordaan, January 2010)

Only 185,000 of 660,000 tickets for fans had been bought by March and several countries were struggling to sell their allocations. England and Denmark’s FAs, for example, had tickets left over.

Tickets continued to sell slowly because of their excessive cost and Fifa’s largely internet-based sales system making them inaccessible to many African fans.

On the eve of the World Cup, Fifa claimed 95% of tickets had been sold. Yet there were thousands of empty seats at games which were supposed to be sell-outs.

Spare seats (red) at England v USA. Photo: stuartnoelfuller

Large sections of seats were unoccupied at the opening match between Mexico and hosts South Africa as well as England against USA, even-though Fifa said both games were full.

Evidence from BBC’s online commentary feed suggests Fifa’s figures are wrong.

David Pleat said South Korea v Greece was ‘at best two-thirds full‘ and Caroline Cheese said there were ‘plenty of empty seats‘ for New Zealand v Slovakia.

Even for the big games, vacant seats were a problem.

Paul Fletcher noted ‘plenty of empty seats‘ at Portugal v Ivory Coast, ‘far too much seating‘ at Ghana v Germany and an ‘ocean of empty seats‘ at Paraguay v Japan. While Jonathan Stevenson wrote ‘huge areas are empty‘ for Netherlands v Denmark and the stadium being ‘nothing like full‘ for Uruguay v South Korea.

Former England defender Danny Mills expressed his disappointment to BBC Radio 5 Live listeners on seeing spare seats at Ghana v Australia:

“There are obviously people who would want to come but can’t get tickets or the tickets are too expensive.” (Danny Mills, June 2010)

To curb the shortfall in the later rounds, Fifa offered tickets to stadium workers and fans of teams who had been eliminated in the group stages.

But spare tickets and empty seats were not the only problem. ITV pundit Robbie Earle was sacked after tickets for his friends and family were passed on to some of the women involved in the ambush marketing stunt.

Scandals such as this are common at the World Cup.

A 2010 World Cup ticket. Photo: flxy

Tickets allocated to sponsors and corporate guests regularly end up in the ‘black market’. The most shocking example is the Simpaul saga in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) for the 2006 World Cup.

Journalist Andrew Jennings attained a copy of an Ernst & Young report which revealed that Fifa vice-president Jack Warner had sold 5,400 T&T World Cup tickets to package tour companies in Japan, Mexico and Britain.

Fifa’s ethics committee (see p5) found Warner guilty of touting tickets through his family-owned Simpaul travel business.

Simpaul quoted a block of three first round tickets priced at €295 would cost fans €3,928 as part of a package which covered a 12-night stay in a double room, but not airfare.

Warner made €2,223 on every package sold and a US$1 million profit overall.

The ethics committee reported this to the executive committee, but Warner only received a reprimand for breaking Fifa rules which forbids any official from selling tickets through a third party or as part of a package.

Incredibly Franz Beckenbauer, who chaired the German local organising committee for the 2006 finals, told press whoever is allocated tickets can do what they like with them:

“What they do with them, it’s not our business.” (Franz Beckenbauer, February 2006)

Effectively this means there is no controlling system for who gets World Cup tickets.

One critic of this flawed management is Robin Wright, Director of Sport at Lincoln University, who says Fifa should be more accountable for ticket sales:

“Very poor management strategy and systems allow this to happen.” (Robin Wright, June 2010)

Indeed football’s governing body has a history of unfair practices in ticket distributing for World Cups.

At Italia 90, for instance, Fifa were found guilty by the European Commission (EC) of limiting ticket supplies to tour operators and travel agencies.

In 1999, the French organising committee for France 98 was fined by the EC for discriminatory ticketing arrangements. The committee, led then by current Uefa president Michel Platini, reserved 60% of all tickets for French citizens.

Fans looking for tickets. Photo: Paul Thompson2007

Then in 2005, the EC warned Fifa over restricted payment methods which denied fans in non-EU countries access to tickets for Germany 2006.

Access to tickets has always been an issue for supporters. Tickets are set aside for privileged groups at the expense of ordinary fans, for example, 20% of all World Cup 98 tickets went to sponsors and corporate guests with just 8% for fans of each team.

Street vendor Atanas Kouhtev, from Bulgaria, says an insufficient supply for fans has led to more underhanded ticket dealings:

“You only make a small profit in merchandise sales, but you can make up to four times as much selling tickets.” (Atanas Kouhtev, May 2010)

Fifa president Sepp Blatter claimed in an interview with BBC 5 Live show Sportsweek that a lack of enthusiasm for hospitality seats was the reason for reduced attendances at this year’s finals.

But despite Fifa’s failure to keep its promise, Blatter still draws comfort from staging another ‘successful’ World Cup:

“We have had empty seats yes, but not empty stadia.” (Sepp Blatter, July 2010)