Soccer fans were fuming last month when ticket orders to the Women’s World Cup were split up, and now, the craziness has continued. When the tournament started this past weekend, more problems with FIFA’s ticketing service ensued.
A day ahead of the match between France and South Korea on Friday, ticketholders were emailed new tickets that they were required to print out in order to enter the Parc de Princes stadium in Paris. The email’s subject line read “FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 – Download your e-tickets!” the Washington Post reported, which confused fans. When spectators reached the stadium with original and replacement tickets, some had to wait up to two hours in line at the box office and then faced more trouble when ushers didn’t know where to seat them.
One fan, Sophie Durieux, told the Post that getting into the stadium was a “nightmare” since many fans disregarded the new email that reissued tickets. Then, when they couldn’t receive help from the box office workers, event staff did not know where to direct them. Another fan, Jennifer Doyle, said she traveled from Los Angeles to attend the match, but when she walked up to the gate with a bar code scanner, her tickets didn’t work.
“There were quite a few people at our gate in the same situation; this must have been happening all evening but the guards working the gates didn’t have reliable advice,” she told the Post. “We were sent to another gate and they didn’t know what to tell us so we got on line at the ticket office; quite a long line of people who had tickets that weren’t being recognized at the gate.”
This weekend’s ticket fiasco follows the outrage late last month when thousands of fans who purchased tickets found out that they would not be able to sit with other members of their family or friends, although they had purchased tickets together. FIFA responded to the angry fans, noting that the order page indicated that not all seats would be located next to each other and it would not be able to modify orders unless fans were be separated from minors who were attending the game with them. FIFA also claimed that only less than one percent of fans faced this issue.
