March 13 – FIFA have confirmed that 568,448 tickets have been allocated following the second random selection draw sales window from 5 December to 31 January, on top of the 735,168 tickets allocated during the first sales phase, making a total of 1,303,616 tickets allocated to date.
Sales of tickets restarted today with tickets available on a first-come first-served basis. Tickets for all matches except match 7 (Argentina vs Iceland) and the final will be available, indicating the tournament is still not sold out. This includes category 4 tickets for selected matches, which are exclusively reserved for Russian residents.
According to FIFA, the recent round of sales saw many matches and ticket products highly oversubscribed requiring a random selection draw for ticket allocation.
The 568,448 tickets allocated (subject to payment) mainly went to Russian fans (197,832) with the next largest national contingents comprising fans from Colombia (33,048), Brazil (24,656), Peru (21,946), Germany (21,639), USA (20,347), Mexico (18,155), Australia (15,906), Argentina (15.214), England (14,890) and Poland (13,686).
Overall, 65% of the tickets allocated during the second random selection sales window went to international customers
FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura said: “With only 94 days left until the FIFA World Cup opening match, we continue to be very happy with the outcome of ticket sales. The huge demand by both local and international fans highlights the great sense of anticipation and excitement that Russia 2018 is sparking around the world.”
FIFA Head of Ticketing Falk Eller said: “Such a great interest obviously caused many matches to be fully overbooked, but we have set up a transparent and fair process of ticket allocation based on a random selection draw procedure, which ensures that each and every application has an equal chance of being successful. Fans who were not so lucky can still be part of the FIFA World Cup in Russia as sales restart on Tuesday.”
FIFA has advised fans to place their orders quickly as high demand is expected and tickets are likely to sell out quickly. A traffic light system available on FIFA.com/tickets will give fans an indication about availability. However, with hotel prices in all categories rocketing beyond the affordability of most football fans, the tournament is already pricing out many fans who have travelled to World Cup tournaments in the past.
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