LONDON: Half a million tickets for Olympic football matches have been withdrawn and stadium capacities reduced due to a lack of take-up, Games organisers said on Tuesday.
Organisers will reduce capacities across venues by closing tiers of stadiums or whole sections of a ground.
Even after the reduction, 250,000 soccer tickets are still available with a further 200,000 set to be put up for sale before the Games begin.
Games chief Seb Coe defended the move and said ticket sales compared favourably with previous Olympics.
“We’ve sold more football tickets than we’ve sold anything else, we’ve got 37-38,000 tickets we’ve sold for Britain ladies v New Zealand which I think benchmarks pretty well.
“We are not in bad shape on tickets but football tickets at a Games are always the challenge. I think we’ll do pretty well.”
The football competition is set to take place in six venues across Britain including the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, City of Coventry Stadium, Old Trafford in Manchester, St James’ Park in Newcastle, Hampden Park in Glasgow and London’s Wembley Stadium.
Organisers will also make 150,000 soccer tickets available for school children through their Ticketshare scheme.
Games organisers have been dogged by criticism throughout the sales process with fans frustrated by online delays. (Reuters)