20100413
africanews

With just some few weeks to the World Cup in South Africa, the world football governing body FIFA and the local organizing committee plead with South Africans to buy the remaining 500,000 tickets that have been made available.

Jerome Valcke of FIFA told CNN: “This final ticket phase is very important. We will not want to give that picture of empty seats to the world; all will need to be done in these last days. I’m very happy with the progress that has been made in the last four ticketing phases. What is important now is to seal the remaining tickets. This is the first FIFA World Cup in Africa; this is Africa’s first opportunity to show the rest of the world that it’s also capable to successfully host events of this magnitude."

The head of the World Cup local organizing committee Danny Jordaan said: "We have done everything we were asked to do. We have created a [reduced price] category of tickets exclusively for South Africa. We have now implemented over-the-counter sales to make sure the tickets are accessible. The final thing is that South Africans must respond. If you are a good host, you must be there. We don’t want the (World Cup) experience to end at the stadiums or the match venues; we want to go beyond that. People who visit our country must be able to enjoy many aspects of our culture and visit many iconic sites.”

The CNN reported that fewer than the 450,000 foreign visitors initially expected will be coming to Africa's first World Cup. A significant number of the tickets that have been made available come from FIFA and its affiliates that have decided not to use them.

Ticket sales have been hampered by factors ranging from location of the host country; over 15 hours from New York by air, 11 hours from London and eight hours from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to the global economy and its impact on leisure travel.