By Mark Baber
January 16 – The first public ticket sales phase for the FIFA Confederations Cup, which kicks off on the June 15 in Brasilia, has been a great success, according to FIFA, with 399,525 ticket requests received.
The demand for tickets for the competition, which will see Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Uruguay, the winner of the upcoming African Nations Cup and Tahiti battling for the championship, is such that a draw will have to be made for oversubscribed matches and categories in the interests of fairness.
Successful, unsuccessful and/or partially successful ticket applicants are expected to be notified any time from January 16 until February 14, 2013.
According to FIFA the city with most tickets requested during this phase was Salvador with 93,567, followed by Rio de Janeiro (88,420), Brasilia (68,912), Fortaleza (68,352), Recife (51,518) and Belo Horizonte (28,756).
The most popular match so far has been the Brazil v Japan opener with 68,912 tickets being requested, followed Italy v Brazil (68,114) and the final in the Maracanã (51,388). The vast majority of applications came from Brazil followed by the USA, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Argentina.
FIFA stressed that CAT4 tickets are only available to Brazilian residents with students, elderly and Bolsa (a Brazilian government social welfare programme) family members having priority access, to whom at least 50,000 tickets will be assigned during the draw in the next couple of days.
In the previous phase, ending in November, 132,843 tickets were sold. The next phase, starting on 15 February 2013, will be on a first-come-first-serve basis via www.FIFA.com/ticketing.
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