Barwick deal increases England's World Cup ticket allocation
By Mark Ryan (telegraph)
(Filed: 09/02/2006)
The Football Association are to receive more than 5,300 extra tickets for England's World Cup group matches, though not from the sources they had anticipated.
The 'German football family' will be the generous donors, taking England's overall allocation for the three group matches to more than 14,000, after not one of England's opposition made a single ticket available through the expected system of returns.
England play Paraguay in Frankfurt on June 10; Trinidad and Tobago in Nuremberg on June 15, and Sweden in Cologne on June 20. The tickets will be sold to members of the official England supporters club, englandfans, and will not go on general sale.
Brian Barwick, the FA's chief executive, said: "This is great news for England fans and the result of intensive lobbying by the FA.
"The England team enjoy unrivalled travelling support and we were determined to do everything we could to increase our allocation to englandfans members.
"England supporters have made a hugely positive contribution to the last two major tournaments we have played in."
It seems that only about 5,000 of the 100,000 England fans expected to travel to Germany will see each of the group matches through official FA sources. The rest will be left to pick up what they can on the black market. Segregation at England's matches will, therefore, be compromised with inevitable implications for security.
The FA are at least relieved that their official trip to Germany last week has borne some fruit. A source said: "We are still doing the figures but we have been given extra tickets by the 'German football family' which we take to mean the organising committee, their FA and the clubs.
"They won't amount to more than 1000 per venue but we should be grateful for that, after it emerged that none of our opposition is returning any tickets.
"We were prepared for Sweden and even Trinidad and Tobago to announce as much, but we were surprised, to say the least, when Paraguay said they had sold their entire allocation. Still, we can only assume they have fulfilled all the Fifa criteria in selling their tickets."
TICKET BOOST FOR ENGLAND FANS
By Martyn Ziegler, PA Chief Sports Reporter
World Cup organisers are to give the Football Association an extra 5,300 tickets for England's three group matches.
The announcement means the FA will have a total of 14,000 tickets for matches against Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden.
The tickets will be sold to members of the official England supporters' club, englandfans rather than distributed on general sale.
However, that still means the FA have been allocated an average of less than 5,000 tickets for each match and there are 25,000 members of the supporters' club.
FA chief executive Brian Barwick said: "This is great news for England fans and the result of intensive lobbying by The FA.
"The England team enjoys unrivalled travelling support and we were determined to do everything we could to increase our allocation for englandfans members.
"England supporters have made a hugely positive contribution to the last two major tournaments we have played in, and we look forward to a fantastic World Cup in Germany."
Sven-Goran Eriksson's team play Paraguay in Frankfurt on June 10, Trinidad & Tobago in Nuremberg on June 15, and Sweden in Cologne on June 20.
