Ticket Tension
January 15, 2008
Similar to the lottery setup for the 2006 World Cup, soccer fans will enter an online drawing for the 14,400 tickets put up for sale by the German Soccer Federation (DFB). The ticket window on the DFB Web site (www.dfb.de) opens Tuesday at 10 a.m. (9 a.m. GMT) and closes at midnight on Feb. 12.
Prospective ticket buyers can register their names and payment details to purchase a maximum of four tickets. Ticket winners are scheduled to be drawn at the end of February. Anyone interested in seeing a Germany game -- not only Germans -- can enter the DFB's ticket lottery.
The soccer organization said it was keeping 30 percent of its tickets for the June 7 to June 29 tournament for dignitaries, DFB officials, sponsors and players.
"Everyone will understand that we have to serve our committees, the Bundesliga clubs, state soccer associations, sponsors and national team players from this really very small allotment of tickets," DFB General Secretary Wolfgang Niersbach said in a statement on Monday.
Small stadiums limit seating
Should Germany advance to the tournament's knock-out stage, the country will receive 22,000 more tickets, of which 70 percent would be made available to the public.
Expecting a good showing from the German team, one of the tournament's favorites, the DFB is selling vouchers for knock-out stage matches, which will be exchanged for tickets if Germany advances.
Some 5,722 tickets are available for 45 euros ($66) for the first-round matches against Poland and Croatia on June 8 and June 12 at Klagenfurt, and 10,321 for the clash against Austria in Vienna on June 16. The highest-priced ticket for the final match in Vienna is 550 euros. All tickets are subject to a 5 percent ticketing fee and 20 euro charge for shipping and handling.
The limited capacity of stadia hosting Germany's games has been criticized in the German press. The Klagenfurt stadium holds 30,000 people while the Vienna stadium has a capacity of 50,000.
"A lot of disappointment"
"It is unfortunate, but we do not have any influence on ticket allocation," DFB President Theo Zwanziger said, adding it was determined by UEFA, Europe's governing soccer body. "I know that there is going to be a lot of disappointment."
The daily mass-market Bild newspaper complained in an editorial on Sunday that the DFB was keeping too many tickets for itself.
"Ninety-nine percent of German supporters who will apply to buy a ticket will go away empty-handed to the delight of the black market, where tickets at 850 euros are already available," the paper wrote. "And that leads to the question: is [soccer] now just for the rich?"
National soccer federations, including the DFB, receive tickets only to European Championship matches involving their country. Tickets for matches involving other teams were put on sale last year on the UEFA Web site and are already sold out.