I don't hold out much hope here but has anyone ever had experience of complaining to/receiving compensation from FIFA about tickets/seats they've been issued? I had Category 3 tickets for the final. We were sat on the 4th row just to the side of the goals (the first two rows were out of use so we had one row of people in front of us). Normally I'd have been more than happy with this, right in the middle of the action. I was, until several video cameramen came and set up right in front of us, the main culprit being a huge 3D TV camera. A third of the entire pitch was blocked off our view. Oh the irony that people back home in pubs could watch in 3D at the expense of some of us who were actually at the stadium. I'd say there were about 4 rows of 20 people affected by this. People around us were going insane at the stewards but they just shrugged their shoulders.
half your luck if you think you can get anything out of FIFA. At the 2006 world cup such seats were sold as 'restricted view' at a discounted price. From previous experince I wouldn't bother emailing any of the addresses on the FIFA website. I would write to one of the FIFA heavies directly. Keep us posted if you have any success
Another thing re photographers. I was in the back in a cat 1 seat..it was well back but the view was surprisingly good. In my row there was a guy with full photo equipment. He didnt seem to have a press pass BUT had a professional lense and a big box kit. I didnt bring my better lens as FIFA explicitly forbid it but this guy seemed to be ignored. I presume he DID have permission but I object to having a dirty great camera kit blocking my access. I am sure Health & Safety rules were broken. I was forced to clamber over it as were many others in my row, including a lady who did not have the luxury of my long legs.. The room in my row was limited already, if there had been any kind of an emergency this could have worked out very bad.
There were two photographers in front of us at the US v Ghana game. One had a long pole he put his camera on so he could raise it up above the crowd. We gave them some flack about blocking our view and asked them why they didn't get a press pass. They said they tried but couldn't get one. I seem to recall telling them that there was going to be a problem if that pole was in front of my face all game long. We were in the middle of the USA TST ticket section and it was solid US supporters (with the odd South African mixed in here and there). The photographers cleared out before the end of the first half so they didn't bother us long. Which reminds me of another bizarre thing that happened at that game. A couple of FIFA guys came down the aisle and started telling the US fans to sit down. They eventually brought some riot police down and pulled a couple of guys out of the crowd and took them away. Someone was filming the FIFA guy being an A hole and the guy grabbed the video camera and ran up the aisle. They gave up on trying to get us to sit down. Don't know if the jerk ever returned the camera to its rightful owner. Everyone was standing in my section and almost everyone was a hard core US fan. FIFA bites. We had category 1 seats for US v Algeria that were in the back of the lower section (underneath the overhanging upper deck). There were TV cameras in front of us that blocked the entire middle of the field. We stood up the whole game so we could see over the camera, but guys in the luxury boxes behind us tried to get us to sit down (unsuccessfully). If we had been sitting we would have missed a lot of the action (for $160 per ticket).