SEOUL,
June 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A crisis meeting is to be
held late Monday, June 3 between FIFA, football governing body, and
the Japanese and Korean World Cup organizers over the tens of
thousands of empty seats during the opening matches.
A
top FIFA official has flown to Japan to meet Japanese organizers to
try and defuse the simmering row, and in Korea, organizers are
considering giving tickets away to try and fill up the empty gaps in
stadiums that are being broadcast around the world, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"There
will soon be a major meeting between FIFA and the organizers,"
FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said Monday.
FIFA
is coming under intense pressure from the two organizing committees
who blame football's governing world body for the ticketing problems.
Both
countries are angry over the television image of thousands of empty
seats - giving the impression that the World Cup is a flop. Television
executives are also concerned by the lack of spectators.
Cooper, however, tried to play down the fears. "There are plenty
of World Cups where matches were not sold out. Some matches are more
attractive than others. We have to be realistic over this," he
said.
But he admitted that there had been problems with the FIFA ticketing
web site where people are able to buy returned tickets. "We have
had some problems of overload," said Cooper.
Long before the World Cup began, angry fans have been complaining
about late deliveries of tickets they bought last year and have still
not arrived.
FIFA says part of the blame was the late printing of the tickets which
caused the delays, but insists that all tickets will be delivered in
time.
Kim Chemin, spokesman for the Korean World Cup organizers (KOWOC),
said they would be meeting to see about giving tickets away free to
fill the stadium.
“We
are thinking about it,” said Kim. “We have many ideas but nothing
concrete. We have to think about the details.” He added that they
could give free tickets to school children or youth clubs.
Japan's
organizing committee for the World Cup (JAWOC) blamed FIFA Sunday for
thousands of empty seats for early matches in Japan, while fans fumed
at the internet ticketing system.
Some
19,000 seats in total were vacant at the Ireland-Cameroon (1-1) and
Germany-Saudi Arabia (8-0) matches on the first day of World Cup
action in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun and Jiji Press news agency
reported.
“We
were told that the unsold overseas tickets would be sent to us for
sale in Japan, so we regret that they were not,” JAWOC spokeswoman
Yukiko Koike said.
When
asked if the unsold tickets caused the great gaps in attendance, Koike
said: “It is a possibility.”
Even
World Cup favorite Argentina and David Beckham-led England did not
play to packed houses Sunday.
In
Saitama, near Tokyo, where England battled Sweden Sunday night, 52,721
fans were in attendance 30 minutes after kickoff, some 10,000 seats
short of its 63,000 capacity, local government officials said.
In
Argentina's 1-0 win against Nigeria in Kashima, Ibaraki prefecture,
some 100 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, only an estimated 34,050 fans
arrived, compared to the stadium's 41,800 capacity.
“We
were surprised. It's not the figure we thought it would be,” an
Ibaraki official told AFP.
While
FIFA has attempted to respond to the shortfall with ticket sales
through their Internet site, enraged fans said the system was
permanently jammed.
“I
think it's a complete shambles,” said Neil Rowe, a 27-year-old pilot
from England, outside the stadium in Saitama, some 50 kilometers
northwest of Tokyo.
He
had finally managed to get tickets for Sunday's England-Sweden match.
“We
spent three days trying to get through [to the FIFA website] and it
kept crashing,” Rowe said.
The
fiasco follows the late printing of a batch of tickets by
British-based company Byrom that left some overseas fans without
tickets.
FIFA
spokesman Andreas Herren said all late ticket deliveries had been
rectified smoothly and that unsold tickets have come mainly from
returns from overseas football associations and sponsors who did not
use them.
He
said that those tickets have been put up for resale on FIFA's website,
which has so far sold 15,000 for Japan venues.
“Some
of the seats in Sapporo [Germany-Saudi Arabia] have not been sold at
all because of the unfavorable sight-lines,” he added.
“Seats
that are not up to scratch should not go on sale,” Herren said.
