Ticket scams hit World Cup fans (Feature)

By Michael Logan Jun 27, 2010, 13:53 GMT

Cape Town - As crowds of flag-waving, vuvuzela-blowing fans strolled through Cape Town city centre during South Africa's opening World Cup match with Mexico, two women sat quietly amidst the chaos.

Perched at the window of an empty - and TV-free - bar on the central Shortmarket street, the pair sipped glasses of white wine and stared morosely out onto the street, ignoring the yellow-shirted supporters peering in at the screens of the bars either side.

The reason for their downcast mood was not a lack of interest in football. They were depressed after falling foul of a Norwegian company called Euroteam, which they tried to purchase tickets over the internet from for that evening's game between France and Uruguay.

'We paid 860 dollars for two tickets from euroteam.info,' one of the well-dressed ladies in their early 40s, who didn't want to be named, told the German Press Agency dpa as a cheer rose up from the neighbouring crowds. 'We only realized something was wrong when we never even got a confirmation.'

The ladies are just two of hundreds of people who have fallen foul of companies selling illegal tickets.

The Sunday Times, which collated stories from people who lost money, estimated that over 6.5 million rand (854,000 dollars) has gone down the toilet so far due to scams and illegal ticket sales at the World Cup.

Euroteam appears to be leading the charge.

Complaints about the company, which sells tickets for all major sporting events, were rife on the internet even before the World Cup.

Hundreds of people ordered tickets that never arrived for Grand Prix events, boxing matches and football games, then struggled to get their money back.

Many people in South Africa who bought tickets from Euroteam actually received their tickets, but found they couldn't use them because they were not sold through Swiss company Match - the company charged with ticketing for the tournament.

One man, Hugo Groenewald, told the Sunday Times he paid Euroteam almost 40,000 rand for six tickets for the South Africa-Mexico match, but only managed to get them just before the game started. He then discovered the tickets were either in the wrong name or contained no names at all.

Colonel Vishnu Naidoo, a police spokesman for the 2010 World Cup, told dpa a German man was caught with 72 tickets, worth 99,000 rand, in his hotel room in Johannesburg's Sandton district before the World Cup began.

He and a Danish citizen, whom Naidoo said are known to be associated with Euroteam, were released on bail after an initial court appearance and are due back next week to face charges of selling illegal tickets.

FIFA, which referred a dpa query about ticket fraud to the South African Police, does not accept responsibility for any losses.

'FIFA and Match have issued numerous warnings to the public not to purchase tickets or hospitality packages from unofficial sources,' the world footballing body said in a statement.

'Unfortunately unauthorized operators or sellers are exploiting the popularity of the FIFA World Cup to lure unsuspecting fans across the world into purchasing illegitimate or unauthorized tickets and/or ticket-inclusive travel packages.'

However, Groenewald believes FIFA should take more responsibility.

'I admit I was naive and am to be blamed, but FIFA must take some blame,' he told the Sunday Times. 'These people are openly advertising tickets. How can FIFA not react and warn the world about it?'

The two ladies, who got their money back from Mastercard, don't blame FIFA, although they were irked they got little sympathy when they notified the ruling body of their woes.

What irritated them the most was that companies such as Euroteam can advertise openly on the internet.

'What is really annoying is that it's one of the top websites that came up on Google when we searched for tickets,' one of the ladies said. 'It seemed legitimate because of that.'

FIFA says it monitors the internet for companies making illegal offers, and then works with international authorities to shut them down.

Given that euroteam.info was on Sunday still advertising ticket and travel packages worth thousands of dollars for games up to and including the final, it would appear FIFA is making little progress.