OC establishes ombudsman service for ticket portal 12 April 2006
by OC 2006 FIFA World Cup
In cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv), the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee (OC) is establishing an ombudsman service for the ticket portal with immediate effect. In the inaugural session that took place on Wednesday in the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection in Bonn, the composition of the ombudsman service was decided, and the scope of its responsibilities set out. "The role of the ombudsman service will include making decisions on any complaints from ticket holders whose requests for a ticket transfer have initially been refused by the OC," said OC 1st Vice President Horst R. Schmidt. Each body will have one seat and one vote within the ombudsman service, with operational matters being conducted by the OC. "In the case of disputes, the delicate balancing act is to help genuine fans without opening the flood gates to the black market. It will still not be possible to transfer tickets without good grounds. This is why we were keen to arrive at an agreement that is in the interests of true fans in this highly sensitive matter," added Schmidt. There were 52,653 requests for transfers and 10,919 tickets offered for resale as of midnight (CEST) on 9 April, the end of the first phase during which the online ticket portal was open at www.FIFAworldcup.com. Since 27 March, it has been possible to return match tickets or transfer them to other people. "At the outset, we forecast that the fans would use the tickets themselves and do anything they could to get into the stadium and that has been shown to be the case. When one considers the fact that 2.7 million tickets have been sold and that around 15 million fans applied for tickets on the Internet, the proportion of those prepared to give up their tickets is only in the region of two percent," explained OC 1st Vice President Schmidt. One particularly simple method of disposing of a ticket without the need to indicate reasons has been the "Resale" portal. "The tickets made available via this channel in the publicly accessible ticket shop were sold within a matter of minutes in all but a few cases, no matter what game they were for," said Schmidt. As soon as the ticket has been successfully sold, the original ticket price is returned to the seller. Reasons for each ticket transfer must be provided to the OC, as Horst R. Schmidt explains: "This is simply a matter of fairness. After all, anyone benefiting from a transfer is jumping ahead of those waiting in the virtual queue on the Internet." Around 25,000 requests for transfer, almost half, were on the grounds of "within the family". 18,000 requests cited individual cases of "hardship", while "illness" was reported in around 8500 further cases. The remaining 1150 or so requests were divided between four reasons generally recognised by the OC, namely "no visa", "no exit visa", "Act of God" and "death". In cases where requests are denied, any individual who feels he or she has been treated unfairly can refer the case to the ombudsman service without the need to fill out a form. Reference should be made to the reply received from the OC when contacting the ombudsman service. The ombudsman service can be contacted with immediate effect by e-mail at ombudsstelle@ok2006.de. The second phase of the ticket portal begins on 1 May. It will remain open until two days before each respective game. |
