- Title: SWITZERLAND: FOOTBALL/SOCCER: Euro 2008 tickets on sale on the internet
- Date: 3rd March 2007
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) EURO 2008 CEO MARTIN KALLEN SAYING: "We have seen in Germany that the personalisation wasn't really a measure to control it, because still there was a huge amount of tickets on the black market and the person that went in with the ticket was never the person with the right name. So we think that it was a good initiative in Germany, but we have seen that logistically, in practice, it's better to do the other measures around with the police to look who are the people, what we need to do, do we need to ban, take photos of people, etc, and really to control visually who goes into the stadium, and today a lot of the people are known." KALLEN GIVING INTERVIEWS (SOUNDBITE) (English) EURO 2008 CEO MARTIN KALLEN SAYING: "We can say that both authorities in Austria and Switzerland are already well prepared and they have very close contacts with all their colleagues outside Switzerland and Austria." VARIOUS OF MASCOTS TRIX AND FLIX POSING WITH KALLEN AND CHAIRMEN OF EURO 2008 ORGANISING COMPANY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
- Embargoed: 18th March 2007 15:56
- Keywords:
- Location: Switzerland
- Country: Switzerland
- Topics: Sport
- Reuters ID: LVAF2E82D6KIZGZEJJDX6C8Q4TV9
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: A third of the total 1,050,000 tickets are now available on the official Web site www.euro2008.com <javascript:void(0)> with the sales window open until the end of March.
All applications made will then go into a lottery with successful applicants receiving notification in April.
A further 38% of tickets will be distributed to fans of the qualified teams via the national associations in early 2008, following the tournament draw in December 2007, with additional fan seats being passed on by tournament sponsors in the form of promotional competitions.
"�������Why 38 percent? Each team playing the match gets 20 percent, so it should stay at 40 percent, but for the quarter and semi finals, we have a 6000 tickets quota per team, so we end up at 38 percent because Basel has a 40,000 capacity, whereas Vienna has a 50,000 capacity", Euro 2008 CEO Martin Kallen said.
In total, 75 percent of tickets should go to regular supporters and fans, but although this percentage share of tickets is larger than for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, the smaller stadiums in Austria and Switzerland mean that the total number of tickets will be considerably less.
Vienna's Ernst-Happel stadium is the largest of the eight venues with a capacity of 50,000. Basel's St Jakob stadium can hold up to 40,000 but the remaining six grounds can only take around 30,000 spectators.
Tickets are available in three price categories, with group stage prices varying from 45 euros for third category seats to 110 euros in the first category.
For the final in Vienna on June 29, top category seats will cost 550 euros.
Unlike 2006 World Cup tickets, applicants do not have to give the details of all ticket users, as only the name of the buyer is required.
"We have seen in Germany that the personalisation wasn't really a measure to control it, because still there was a huge amount of tickets on the black market and the person that went in with the ticket was never the person with the right name. So we think that it was a good initiative in Germany, but we have seen that logistically, in practice, it's better to do the other measures around with the police to look who are the people, what we need to do, do we need to ban, take photos of people, etc, and really to control visually who goes into the stadium, and today a lot of the people are known", Kallen said, doubting the efficiency of namely tickets. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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