MOSCOW, Feb 9 — The International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) received over 17 million ticket requests for the 2022 World Cup from fans around the world during the 20 days of the first cycle of applications which ended on Tuesday.
“Fans across the globe have proven their enthusiasm ahead of football’s biggest celebration as 17 million ticket requests were received in the first sales period of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which lasted just 20 days,” FIFA said in a statement.
The largest number of applicants came from fans living in Qatar, who are exclusively eligible for the lowest price offers. FIFA also received a huge number of applications from Argentina, Brazil, England, France, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, said Sputnik.
At the same time, the largest demand was for the final match, scheduled to take place at Lusail Stadium on Dec 18. According to the statement, over 1.8 million requests were received for this match alone, with stadium capacity of around 80,000 people. Applicants will find out whether they will be the happy owners of tickets before March 8, FIFA said.
The first FIFA World Cup in the Middle East and Arab world is scheduled to be held from Nov 18 to Dec 18.
Ticket sales for the 2022 World Cup started on FIFA’s website on Jan 19. Fans were able to apply for four categories of tickets through a random draw. These included individual matches (specific matches from the opening match to the final); team-specific matches; a new FIFA product of ticket series for matches at four stadiums throughout four days; and tickets for people with disabilities.
Fans are expected to get a second chance to purchase tickets online before the final draw for the 2022 World Cup that will take place on April 1. The subsequent cycles of sales will start after the final draw.
This year, every applicant may buy up to six tickets for each match and no more than 60 tickets for the whole tournament.
Sources: BERNAMA