Monday, March 27, 2006
The tickets are mine
22nd March and the slimy, inept touts trading under the name Ticketmaster have just debited my bank account for my World Cup tickets. Having seen prices on Ebay, I'm immensely relieved that I don't have to go via the black market to see the games. If you want to see all 3 group matches involving England, it's going to set you back no less than €1,500.
I was watching Germany v USA last week on TV and I was shocked how inept both teams look. I know the German's have a lot of internal problems and there is talk that Klinnsman could be replaced. Somehow they won 4-1 against a US team ranked 5th in the world. If that doesn't show what a joke the FIFA world rankings are. Based on this performance, neither side will make the quarter-finals but that said, England fans know better than most that performances in friendly matches aren't always a good yard-stick.
The biggest threat to England's chances of winning the tournament (apart from the moron in charge of the team) is injuries. Michael Owen has been out for months now although doctors think he will be fine. The fact is, Owen needs to be playing in the next few weeks in order to get match fit. England have friendlies on 31st May and 3rd June against Hungary and Jamaica. The group matches against Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and finally, Sweden would give Owen 5 matches before the KO rounds start. One player who will miss out is Chris Kirkland who is injured and will not be fit in time.
Fingers crossed no more injuries will hit the squad.
I was watching Germany v USA last week on TV and I was shocked how inept both teams look. I know the German's have a lot of internal problems and there is talk that Klinnsman could be replaced. Somehow they won 4-1 against a US team ranked 5th in the world. If that doesn't show what a joke the FIFA world rankings are. Based on this performance, neither side will make the quarter-finals but that said, England fans know better than most that performances in friendly matches aren't always a good yard-stick.
The biggest threat to England's chances of winning the tournament (apart from the moron in charge of the team) is injuries. Michael Owen has been out for months now although doctors think he will be fine. The fact is, Owen needs to be playing in the next few weeks in order to get match fit. England have friendlies on 31st May and 3rd June against Hungary and Jamaica. The group matches against Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and finally, Sweden would give Owen 5 matches before the KO rounds start. One player who will miss out is Chris Kirkland who is injured and will not be fit in time.
Fingers crossed no more injuries will hit the squad.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Ticket Fiasco
The ticket situation for England fans is a disgrace. A huge number of fans who have travelled to away games haven't managed to get a single ticket for the finals. Naturally, there is uproar and its not surprising when you see the figures. Under 4,000 tickets have been made available to England fans (bear in mind we took 8,000 to Denmark for a friendly) with around 18,000 applications. The FA are coming under fire with the allocation to the so-called 'Football Family' but ultimately, FIFA must come under fire for firstly, giving such inadequate allocations to competing teams and secondly for refusing to switch venues so the better supported teams play in the bigger stadia as happened in Euro 2004.
This, of course, has created a huge black market which FIFA are doing nothing to control. In fact, they have even set up a procedure to allow people to change names on the tickets. Couple that with an easily accessible venue for the finals and you have a touts dream.
To give you an idea of the ridiculous prices being paid on the black market, look at this list
England v Trinidad and Tobago, 2x Cat 1 tickets €1,561
England v Sweden, 2x Cat 3 tickets €1,011
England v Sweden, 1x Cat 3 ticket €376
England v Paraguay, 2 tickets €506
It's a disgrace the way football is being taken away from the supporters.
B International
The FA have announced a 'B' international against Belarus to be played in/near London on 25th May. It's been a while since we had one of these. In fact it was also just before a tournament and it gave the fringe players a chance to stake their claim in the squad. However, this time, the fixture is to be played 10 days after the squad must be named so I have no idea what the point of this game is.
Wembley Stadium
This whole project is rapidly turning into a huge embarrassment. God knows when it will be finished. The lates incident was when a girder in the roof fell 3 feet causing the site to be cleared and a days work lost. We are due host a friendly on 16th August (rumoured to be Germany) and we kick off our Euro 2008 campaign at home to Andorra on 2nd Sept. You really have to wonder if the stadium will be ready in time.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Finally, we get our tickets
After what seems like an eternity, the English Football Association finally announced the allocation of tickets to supporters in the England Fans club. With 25,000 members and less than 5,000 tickets available for each game, you don't need to be very bright to realise a lot of people were going to miss out.
England probably run one of the fairest ways to distribute tickets to their fans. People who go to away games get awarded 2 caps with 1 cap for home games. For any over-subscribed away match, 70% of the allocation goes to the top-cappers and the remaining 30% is in an open ballot. This rewards loyalty but also doesn't make it a closed shop. Of course, it's not perfect but things never are when demand outstrips supply. There has been an extra level of complication for the FIFA 2006 World Cup as there are 4 price categories of tickets (1 being the highest price). Not everyone was prepared to pay for the higher priced tickets so the only way the top cappers were guaranteed a ticket was by stating on the application form they would pay for every category. If you were allocated a category you were not prepared to pay for, no alternative was offered.
For the top cappers, travel reservations haven't been a problem. You may remember from an earlier Blog entry, the frantic hours on the internet following the draw to reserve hotels and flights. The borderline cappers, however, had a dilemna. Should they book flights without a ticket. Unless you book business class, airlines won't offer refunds and hotels aren't being much help either. Each person will have made their own judgement but you can be sure there has been a flurry of activity on the airline and hotel websites tonight. For the record, I got a full collection for Cat. 4 tickets - total cost £340.
We also learned our fixtures for Group E in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. After a 2nd meeting between the competing teams finally saw the fixtures confirmed. Due to deadline problems with Wembley, it now appears the first competitive match at the newly renovated stadium will be the opening home fixture. The opposition for this prestigious match will be.............Andorra. Obviously, it's not the most glamorous team in the world but football is a global game for people at all levels so in a strange way, maybe it's the right thing that a smaller team is the first to play a competetive match at the most famous stadium in the world.
England probably run one of the fairest ways to distribute tickets to their fans. People who go to away games get awarded 2 caps with 1 cap for home games. For any over-subscribed away match, 70% of the allocation goes to the top-cappers and the remaining 30% is in an open ballot. This rewards loyalty but also doesn't make it a closed shop. Of course, it's not perfect but things never are when demand outstrips supply. There has been an extra level of complication for the FIFA 2006 World Cup as there are 4 price categories of tickets (1 being the highest price). Not everyone was prepared to pay for the higher priced tickets so the only way the top cappers were guaranteed a ticket was by stating on the application form they would pay for every category. If you were allocated a category you were not prepared to pay for, no alternative was offered.
For the top cappers, travel reservations haven't been a problem. You may remember from an earlier Blog entry, the frantic hours on the internet following the draw to reserve hotels and flights. The borderline cappers, however, had a dilemna. Should they book flights without a ticket. Unless you book business class, airlines won't offer refunds and hotels aren't being much help either. Each person will have made their own judgement but you can be sure there has been a flurry of activity on the airline and hotel websites tonight. For the record, I got a full collection for Cat. 4 tickets - total cost £340.
We also learned our fixtures for Group E in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. After a 2nd meeting between the competing teams finally saw the fixtures confirmed. Due to deadline problems with Wembley, it now appears the first competitive match at the newly renovated stadium will be the opening home fixture. The opposition for this prestigious match will be.............Andorra. Obviously, it's not the most glamorous team in the world but football is a global game for people at all levels so in a strange way, maybe it's the right thing that a smaller team is the first to play a competetive match at the most famous stadium in the world.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
The Uruguay friendly and tickets
With just 100 days to go until the start of the World Cup in Germany and England played host to Uruguay at Anfield in the first of 3 friendly matches as part of the build-up to the tournament.
The saw a minutes silence for former manager, Ron Greenwood who died last month and also for Chelsea legend, Peter Osgood who collapsed and died at a family funeral today at the age of 59.
Charlton striker Darren Bent (and former Ipswich Town striker) was given his full debut along side Wayne Rooney in the absense of Michael Owen. The game didn't provide any special moments until Uruguay took the lead with a stunning 30 yard volley after a corner was only half-cleared. After that, the visitors were happy to sit back and although England had plenty of possesion, they didn't really make the keeper work. Joe Cole was definitely pick of the players and it the 75th minute, he whipped over a cross for Peter Crouch to head England level. But Cole wasn't finished there and won the game for England with the last kick of the game when he finished a Wright-Phillips cross from close range. The biggest down-point of the evening was when Wayne Bridge was stretchered off but early suggestions are the injury is not too serious.
The other leading nations suffered some bad results with France losing 2-1 at home to Slovakia, Argentina losing 3-2 to Croatia, Germany losing 4-1 in Italy and Spain were struggling against Ivory Coast.
As part of the build up to the finals, I've added the match schedule to the World Cup 2006 Information website. After the tournament, it will be a detailed statistical record of the finals
The ticket situation for England fans is a joke and it's all FIFA's fault. The FA have done well and managed to secure extra tickets but so far, they have still not been able to confirm the category of tickets being provided so the FA have been unable to allocate them to supporters. We are hoping to hear this week but I'm not holding my breath.
Racism has again reared it's ugly head in Spain. Real Zaragoza fans were hurling so much abuse at Barcelona stirker, Samuel E'to on Sunday, he threatened to walk off the pitch. He was persuaded to stay on the pitch by team-mates but this sort of situation is a disgrace and sadly far too often. What's even worse is the totally inadequate response of the Spanish authorities. They have acted quickly and fined Zaragoza around 10,000 Euros. To many people, that's an insult and they would have been better just ignoring the incident. To hand out such feeble penalties is hardly going to encourage people to stop. If the Spanish can't deal with the problem, then FIFA should. We had a problem in England and for the most part, it's been dealt with so it can be done.
