Written by S. Monteban    Friday, 23 April 2010 08:59   
World Cup 2010 Tickets: Match Struggling with Inventory - Dumping Back into Open Market
The Mail & Guardian in South Africa is reporting today that Match Hospitality AG, which was awarded a healthy €375 million hospitality contract by FIFA, and which is partly owned by FIFA Chief Sepp Blatter's nephew Philippe Blatter, is struggling to sell its allocation of 380000 tickets for luxury hospitality suites and seats during the World Cup. It is now estimated that as few as 2000 of these high-end tickets have been bought by foreign visitors.


Lethargic sales and a perception among international tour operators that they are being forced to buy overpriced tickets from another Match company - Match Services AG, which is responsible for selling tickets within Fifa's tour operators programme - have contributed to constantly declining projections of the number of foreign visitors expected to attend the tournament, reports the Mail & Guardian.

Dismal sales last month led to Match Services returning 450000 bed nights it had initially booked from hotels and bed and breakfasts. This was after the company returned 45000 airline seats it had booked through SAA.

There are growing perceptions in the global football industry that Match, with it's links to Fifa president Sepp Blatter through his nephew Philippe, is a financial autocracy allowed to hog tickets at its discretion ... and shift them into the public domain when it is convinced that no profit can be made.

Read full article here.

 

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