24 Jun 2008Uefa admits Euro 2008 ticketing problems

Football Leagues/ Association and Governance | Football Supporters News

Uefa has admitted that ticketing problems left some Euro 2008 stadiums with empty seats.

Although the games had been sold out, some empty seats were left unfilled because teams had not returned tickets to the governing body.

According to Uefa spokesman William Gaillard, the body was made aware of the problem but "could not manage" to sell the remaining seats.

As a result, he said that Uefa decided to restrict the ticket allocation to Russia and Italy for the semi-final matches.

"Obviously this will make no difference in the case of Italy, as they have been knocked out, but Russia will only receive 4,000 instead of 6,000 tickets for their semi-final game against Spain," he explained.

Tickets for the championships went on sale earlier this year but many football fans failed to get hold of one, the DPA reports.

This was partly due to the small capacity of some of the stadiums in Austria and Switzerland and the German Football Association applied for more than double the amount of total tickets on sale for the whole competition.

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