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April 28, 2005
Football World Cup ticket chaos
Excuse me while I rant about this for a moment. The organisation committee for the Football World Cup 2006 in Germany have got themselves into a real pickle. The first round of the ticket-lottery has just finished, a few fans are happy but many are upset that they didn't receive a ticket. Now, the tickets are - supposed to be - personalized. The idea being that to take part in the lottery you had to enter a load of personal information into "the system" that links the ticket to you. The tickets themselves will only be sent out 4-6 weeks before the match and all we have at the moment is a simple email. At leas that was the theory.
So lets look at what has happened since last weekend.
People have started putting tickets up for sale on eBay Germany. And they are selling for massive amounts (12.500 Euros for 2 tickets for example). Because only so few people have received tickets, the "demand" side is obviously high. The organisation committee has publicly stated that "you aren't allowed to sell your ticket without prior written consent from us". Actually that is in the regulations governing the lottery.
But - this rule is most probably in conflict with German consumer rights. And common sense.
eBay on the other hand has stated "it is not illegal to sell football tickets in Germany". Stalemate.
However eBay have put up a page explaining the current situation with regard to receiving prior written consent from the organisation committee.
Now to make things worse the company actually responsible for organizing the lottery (Eventim) are now in discussions with the organisation committee to set up a way for tickets to be publicly bought and sold (i.e. where you can "legally" sell your ticket). However - not as an auction but only for the amount you yourself paid for it. This setup is scheduled to go live at the end of the year (if all sides agree). Of course Eventim will receive some additional income by doing this as there will be a fee for buying or selling your ticket.
Something tells me this is going to get worse.
Posted by Matthew at April 28, 2005 09:32 AM