Limited tickets still on offer for Italy/Brazil showdown

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Pretoria - Football lovers who had been hoping to purchase 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup tickets for the eagerly awaited Italy/Brazil showdown have been thrown a lifeline.

World football governing body FIFA says as some of the corporate customers did not use their full ticket quota, there is a small quantity of category one tickets available for the clash on 21 June at Loftus Versfeld Stadium, in Pretoria

"These tickets can be purchased online at www.FIFA.com, over the phone with a payment card or purchased over the counter at any FNB branch or at any FIFA Ticketing Centre (addresses can be found at www.FIFA.com)," FIFA stated.

With at least two weeks before the kick off to the Confederations Cup, a total of more than 400 000 tickets have been sold so far for the Festival of Champions. There are about 240 000 tickets still remaining.

Meanwhile, according to Joburg.org, of the tickets sold, 25 000 had been bought over-the-counter since the opening of ticketing centres in the four host cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane/Pretoria, Mangaung/Bloemfontein and Rustenburg.

Johannesburg is in the lead, with 33 509 tickets purchased and collected at its ticketing centre in Sandton Isle, in Sandton.

According to FIFA, tickets for several matches in various categories are sold out and category four tickets which are the cheapest tickets are available exclusively to South African residents in Rands.

For the group matches and the third place match, category four tickets go for R70 only and categories one to three tickets are available in American dollars to football fans living outside the country.

People can still apply for tickets through FNB branches. At bank branches, buyers must collect official ticket application forms from any FNB branch across the country.

Tickets can also be bought online from the FIFA website. Soccer fans must register their request for tickets and monitor the outcome or status of their ticket application online.

When advised that their ticket application was successful, fans can collect tickets using their Visa payment card from various points in the four host cities