November 14, 2017

Ticket sales for the world’s biggest football event, the 2018 FIFA World Cup, will resume on Thursday on a first-come first-served basis.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a total of 622,117 tickets were successfully allocated to subscribers, even though this was subject to payment being made later.

This was also at the conclusion of the first window of sales phase from Oct. 1 to Oct. 12.

According to a report by the FIFA Media Office on Tuesday, some 3,496,204 tickets had initially been requested with many ticket products and matches being heavily oversubscribed.

This requires the allocation of tickets through a random selection draw process carried out in the presence of a public notary.

During this process FIFA also identified a number of ticket applications which were not eligible to enter into the random selection draw.

For example, ticket applications for team-specific ticket series — for teams that are no longer able to qualify — as well as ticket applications that violated the household restrictions.

This is in the category of applying for a maximum of four tickets for up to seven matches.

From the total number of applications, majority have come from Russia, and based on results of the Random Selection Draw process 57 percent of tickets were allocated to Russian fans.

Tickets allocated to international fans account for 43 percent of the total number of allocated tickets.

The US, Chinese, German, Brazilian, Israeli, English, Finnish, Mexican and French fans all rank in the top ten in this category.

During the upcoming sales period, which starts on Thursday and end on Nov. 28, fans will be able to purchase tickets in real time on FIFA.com/tickets.

They will get immediate confirmation of successful applications, subject to availability.

Football fans were advised to place their order as soon as the sales period opens.

This is because high demand is expected and the remaining inventory following the random selection draw sales period was likely to sell out very quickly.

Tickets purchased during sales phases 1 and 2 will be delivered free of charge to fans in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

Deliveries have been planned to start in April or May of 2018, even though this is subject to change.

Tickets may be purchased using payment cards of Visa, the Official Payment Services Partner of FIFA.

Purchases can also be made by other accepted payment methods.

FIFA’s Head of Ticketing, Falk Eller, said the world football body was already overwhelmed by the positive response from both Russian and international fans so far.

“’With only a few teams still to qualify, we are again expecting high demand once sales resume on Thursday.

“Considering such remarkable interest in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia from fans all over the world, we will like to once again stress that the only official, legitimate and user-friendly source to purchase tickets is the FIFA.com/tickets website.

“Fans who purchase tickets from other sources put themselves at significant risk of missing out on the World Cup, and of course we will not want that to happen.

“Category 4 tickets, which are exclusively reserved for Russian residents, will not be available for purchase during the upcoming first-come, first-served sales period.

“This is due to the full allocation of the currently available category four tickets during the previous sales period.

“FIFA will also make a dedicated allocation of tickets available for disabled people, people with limited mobility and fans classified as obese,” Eller said.