I see FIFA are saying there are 1.3m applications for just under 1m tickets but only 6 games are over subscribed. This would suggest to me that these 6 games must be dramatically over subscribed but which? They state the Final and two semis. I can only imagine:- England v USA Mexico v SA England v Algeria Any other suggestions? I think I am correct in saying that at the same time four years ago there were only 5-6 games that were NOT oversubscribed. Hopefully we should all get the games we wanted.
final and both semis according to the article. My guesses for the other 3 england v usa england v algeria round of 16 in Rustenburg.
Why only Mexico vs South Africa ? My first guess would be that the three other games are just all South Africa's first round games : against Mexico, Uruguay and France. I know Brits (and Dutch) send armies of supporters, but travelling to South Africa still makes a big gap compared to what locals need to see a game.
Oh dear we cross swords again. The Dutch are not sending that many it appears but the problem as FIFA keep lamenting as that the locals are buying plenty of tickets but not to see Bafana bafana. Uruguay will not take more than 2,000 and I won't attempt to guess what the french will take.
i actually dont think its an England match. i read an article today that the English Football Federation had 6,000 unsold tickets. i could see Portugal - Brazil being one of them
I heard elsewhere that the three toughest group stage games to get would be USA-England, Brazil-Portugal, and Holland-Denmark (??? not sure why the last one but that was what I heard). So those 3 plus the final and semifinals would be 6... Also I hope South Africa - Uruguay is not oversubscribed because I put in an order for that one!
You may be right but I cannot believe the last one Both Holland and Denmark and sold very disappointingly and it is at Soccer City!
It depends whether they are including the individual Assocations allocations in this. Most of these tickets were for a 3/4 th place and surely US England has been be well oversubscribed in a smallish ground.
I would guess all three SA games and the 2 semis and finals. USA - ENG may be one but it has one disadvantage of being on the first weekend and the flights are very expensive to arrive on/before that Friday, so some people may skip that one for cheaper flights that arrive sat/sun/mon
I may well be wrong but a bit surprised with this. FIFA have gone on continually about the poor support from locals for their team and that they could even be outnumbered by Mexicans. Also as Cat. 1s are half the ground I am not sure they will have sold all of those for all their games.
OK so it can't include the associations in FIFA's determination that these games were sold out. Why? Becuase the R16 game for England was oversubcribed by their association by 150 tickets - but what about the associaitons of USA, Algeria and Slovenia? I know unsold tickets for their associations will be made availalble to the other teams but have not been taken advantage of yet. So now you can't inlcude comments about one association or another. I would also think that even though there are some popular games out there you have to discount a sell out at this point of the really large stadiums such as JB (SC). Therefore I think it is the USA V ENG game due to the fan bases and the size of the stadium, The R16 game in Rustenburg (becuase the English feel very confident they will be playing in this one) and the Eng V Algeria game in CT - remember fans in SA have bought more tickets (or put in more applications) to see England play than their own country (news as of a couple of weeks ago). Brazil V Portugal will be sold out soon in phase 4. The other clue is the wording of sold out in every category - during phase II there were games sold out to us but availalbe if you went in under 'South African resident' meaning phase IV tickets. I assume they have now been snapped up for the England games by South African residents.
Possible, but not according to their latest propaganda news campaign about the tix sales If there are more Mexicans than South Africans at the opener, that would be pretty insulting to the host nation. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/732498/ce/uk/?cc=5901&ver=us
It was Jordaan who wnet on about how few tickets the locals were buying and they would not see the host nation so hardly surprising the press jumped on this. Also if ticket have gone so wonderfully why have they set up all these new phases systems. Was very unimpressed by him saying he was surprised at Mexico being the fourth highest buyers. Surely he should know how many they took to japan and Germany! I think the guy is doing a difficult job well but these constant mixed messages about sales are a bit desperate.
Now on the FIFA website, they list 5 of the 6 oversubscribed matches: (Speaking at a press conference held in Sandton in Johannesburg today , Chairman of the FIFA World Cup Ticketing sub-committee, Horst Schmidt, announced that six FIFA World Cup matches are already oversubscribed, including the opening match and Final at Soccer City in Johannesburg, the group match between Portugal and Brazil in Durban as well the Semi-Final matches in Durban and Cape Town.) I have tickets for 23June USA/Algeria in Pretoria, and I had put in for two matches in the round of 16: 26June in Rustenburg and 27June at JoBurg Soccer City. I am hoping that the 6th oversubscribed match is the USA/England first round match, but I have a sinking feeling that it will be the Rustenburg RO/16 match that I want, since the stadium is small and either England or USA will likely be there. It is a shame that FIFA cannot give more info (which Categories of which matches are oversubscribed) it should be a pretty simple thing to do - and would help alot of people make plans.
If we take 500, that's huge. I know some people who were going but just backed out because of the costs. They already had the tickets.
mind you, very bad news for those of us with around £700 worth of tickets that we were hoping to sell due to not going because of the ridiculous prices for hotels and flights.