Half a million 2010 World Cup tickets successfully drawn, marking the end of the first phase

Excitement over the 2010 FIFA World Cup came to a head on Thursday as FIFA announced the breakdown of the tickets being granted after the first phase of the ticket draw came to a close.

 

1.8 Million tickets were requested from over 200 countries in total but it was only a number of 555 871 tickets being drawn successfully. Of that number, the majority of 245 948 tickets were drawn to South African residents. The next highest number was 69 208 which were granted to United States Residents followed by the United Kingdom with 39 421 tickets and Germany with 29 330 tickets.

 

The tickets were drawn using a random selection draw, completed by a computer program,  which took place on Wednesday by the company, Match Services, who are heavily involved in ticketing for the World Cup. The use of a computer program in the random selection draw was to ensure the process remained completely fair.

 

Despite South Africa receiving over 40% of the tickets drawn, the most popular team in the application process was England. People had the option of applying for team-specific tickets and a total of 228 822 England fans tried to get their hands on these. At the end though, the team-specific tickets drawn for England only came to a number of 8 895.

 

If you haven’t heard anything yet though, don’t worry, applicants will be receiving text messages and emails up until the end of April telling them whether or not their applications were successful. If you still don’t hear anything by the end of the month though, South African applicants can contact the ticketing centre at enquiries@2010FWCTC.co.za or on 083 123 2010.

 

What about if you weren’t successful?

Don’t worry, the second ticket phase will begin on May 4 and continue until November 16. This next ticket phase will be more of a “first come first served” phase so get your trigger fingers ready!