World Cup Ticket Sales Booming on the Black Market
June 20, 2006
Many fans hope luck will be on their side as they stand in front of the World Cup stadiums looking for last-minute tickets. But they have to pay the price in order to get into the desired matches.
Tickets in advance sales went for 45 euros ($56) to 100 euros. On the black market, these same tickets often have a price tag of 200 to 500 euros. For the World Cup final in Berlin on July 9, black market prices are running up to 5,900 euros.
The black market has long developed into a professionally organized business. The dealers have bicycles and mobile phones, enabling them to effectively cover the ground around the stadiums.
Not prohibited, but risky
The police and FIFA have announced that they will control the flourishing trade with World Cup tickets. Legally, reselling tickets is not prohibited.
"We can only warn from buying tickets on the black market," said Stephan Eiermann, a spokesman from the German organizing committee. Since the tickets are personalized, "we could stem the black marketing pretty well," he said.
But it is simply not possible to control every person entering a stadium. Per game, about 500 to 1,000 spectators are controlled as to whether they are actually the original buyers of the tickets, whose names are registered with the organizing committee. But those fans who fail the spot check because their names aren't on the ticket can still register their names at so-called clearing points -- and still make it into the stadium.
FIFA official caught
A member of FIFA's executive committee was even caught selling World Cup match tickets for three times their value. The former president of the Botswana Football Association, Ismail Bhamjee, admitted that he had sold 12 tickets to the England - Trinidad and Tobago match, played on June 15 in Nuremberg, for 300 euros each. The tickets initially cost 100 euros each.
Bhamjee said in a statement he "deeply regretted this incorrect act." He apologized to FIFA for violating the conditions governing the sale of World Cup tickets.
"It is deeply embarrassing when a high ranking official is involved in something like this," Markus Siegler, FIFA's director of communications, told the press. "It puts FIFA in a very bad light. On the other hand, FIFA proved that we take these things very seriously and acted very quickly."
Bhamjee is set to become the first person forced to resign from FIFA's executive committee in its 102-year history. He has since returned home to Botswana, FIFA said on Monday.