The fears of World Cup organisers were realised on Friday when
ticket re-sale offers appeared on eBay only hours after applicants
learned whether or not they had been successful in the draw for
World Cup match tickets.
"All we can do is warn people to steer well clear of such
offers," said Horst Schmidt, senior vice-president of the
Organising Committee. "Fans obtaining tickets in this way may find
themselves denied admission at the turnstiles."
A total of 812,000 tickets were drawn on 15th April, with
winners and losers being notified by e-mail last Friday. Yet within
hours, tickets were on sale at inflated prices.
Organisers are going to unprecedented lengths to eliminate
black market ticket sales for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, citing
security concerns and the need to combat hooliganism.
The ticket application form required a high degree of personal
information from applicants, and this data will be used to
personalise the tickets, which can only be transferred for a
genuine reason, and with the approval of the Organising
Committee.
Each ticket will also contain a unique identifier in the form
of an
RFID
(Radio Frequency Identification) tag.
RFID
tags consist of a microchip and a tiny
antenna that transmits data from the chip to a reader, which will
be located at electronically controlled turnstiles, allowing the
validity of the ticket to be checked when presented before a
match.
"There could be problems if the ticket and personal
ID
fail to match, exactly as there would be with an
airline ticket," warned Schmidt. "We've said it often enough
before, and we're saying it again: tickets are only transferable
for good reasons – and profiteering isn't a good reason."
The Committee is considering legal action against those
selling on the black market.
"The terms and conditions of sale have unquestionably been
breached, and copyrights infringed. The people making these offers
do not have the right to transfer tickets allocated to them to
third parties," said Schmidt.
