Attendances

[Eddie]

Surely the attendances have to be worrying for FIFA and South Africa. I'm currently watching the Japan v Cameroon game and it is the third game where the stadium has been nowhere near full.

[cn174]

It is puzzling because if you go onto the website, there's barely any tickets for any game left for sale. FIFA don't give a flying one if there's noone in the stadium, so long as the tickets have been sold one way or the other.

I think the main issue is probably transport. The ones in the big cities seem to have been fine, however some other places are very difficult to get to.

[Eddie]

Yes, it is a bit odd, but surely it will be a factor in whether or not the tournament is viewed as a success.

[Bobby G]

FIFA gave away loads of tickets for free to avoid this situation. I guess it didnt work.

Its nice giving the WC to Africa, but these are all factors that people have to take into account. No one is really going to travel so far away to support their countr (well most people wont).

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Here are some paragraphs taken from this link regarding some attendances

FIFA is investigating whether transport and ticket distribution systems failed after at least 8,000 seat-holders did not attend the World Cup match between South Korea and Greece in Port Elizabeth.

Only 31,513 people attended South Korea's 2-0 victory on Saturday at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, which holds 42,486 spectators for World Cup games.

FIFA had said just 3,000 tickets were available on the morning of the match.

FIFA said Sunday that 700 unsold tickets were available hours before Algeria and Slovenia played in the 41,733-capacity Peter Mokaba Stadium.

An official attendance of 30,235 was declared.

[thenodrog]

Here are some paragraphs taken from this link regarding some attendances

FIFA is investigating whether transport and ticket distribution systems failed after at least 8,000 seat-holders did not attend the World Cup match between South Korea and Greece in Port Elizabeth.

Only 31,513 people attended South Korea's 2-0 victory on Saturday at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, which holds 42,486 spectators for World Cup games.

FIFA had said just 3,000 tickets were available on the morning of the match.

FIFA said Sunday that 700 unsold tickets were available hours before Algeria and Slovenia played in the 41,733-capacity Peter Mokaba Stadium.

An official attendance of 30,235 was declared.

An initial stab as to the cause would be that the tickets are prob way too expensive.

[cn174]

An initial stab as to the cause would be that the tickets are prob way too expensive.

I think in some cases yes, but really the way FIFA have done the ticketing has been less than clever. Up until very recently the only way you could buy tickets was online using a credit card. It doesn't take much to think that a lot of the SA population wont be able to access that service. Then when they did go on sale for cash, the fifa computers crashed. At one point people were queuing for 24 hours to get tickets (which shows a demand), but the computer system completely failed.

[Ozz]

FIFA announced today that total attendances so far have been 2.997 million for the 61 games, with an average of 49,134. This total is only bettered by USA '94 - which drew a record 3.59 million - and Germany 2006 - with 3.36 million.