9 Mar 2009Fifa issues ticket warning to South African World Cup organisers

Football Leagues/ Association and Governance | Football Supporters News

Fifa has ordered the South African organisers of the 2010 World Cup to increase the level of tickets being snapped up by locals, the Guardian reported yesterday (March 8th).

According to the newspaper, it has emerged that around 80 per cent of the applications for the three million available tickets have so far come from outside of the country.

Responding to the news, Danny Jordaan, chairman of the local organising committee, urged his fellow South Africans to put themselves forward for the first phase of applications, which runs until March 31st.

He was quoted by the newspaper as saying: "It is disappointing. If the random draw for phase one tickets was to take place now, 750,000 tickets would go overseas and 500 would be left for South Africa. I urge all South Africans to buy tickets now."

South African government spokesman Thabo Maseko added that politicians will "interact" with Jordaan and his team in order to review how the tournament is being marketed domestically.

"Not enough money has been set aside to market these tournaments to South Africans," he told the Guardian.

Only 140,000 of 640,000 tickets have so far been sold for the Confederations Cup, which is also being held in South Africa in three months' time.

© Copyright