FIFA to end ticket frustration

FIFA are taking steps to ensure that as many seats as possible are filled at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

This year’s London Olympics and European Championships in Poland and Ukraine were both dogged by no-shows in venues that were meant to be sold out.

But FIFA’s marketing director Thierry Weil revealed today they will revamp the official resale website used at the last World Cup, so that fans could sell unwanted tickets as late as the day of a game.

Weil also announced sponsors would have to provide a list of names of who they had given tickets to “two or three days in advance so they cannot just say the people will come and then nobody comes”.

Weil told the Leaders in Football conference at Stamford Bridge: “Empty seats is always a huge topic. We are implementing new initiatives, we are implementing new resale platforms.

“There will always be no-shows but we will do our maximum to reduce that to a strict minimum.

The tickets will only be handed over the day of the game to the people, so you can reallocate tickets to different people, even in the sponsor families.”