With less than a month to go until the FIFA U-17 World Cup spectacle kicks off in India, the first of its kind to be held in the country from October 6-28 across six host cities, fans from the world over have booked their tickets online and over the counter.
A large chunk of patrons have, however, raised concerns over the receipt of hard copies of their tickets. The six host cities are Goa, Guwahati, Kochi, Kolkata, Navi Mumbai and New Delhi.
When will fans get physical tickets?
ANFP Chile
For those who have booked tickets online using the delivery via courier option, "tickets once bought will be delivered to you closer to the event date" is what they agree to, while whoever have used the pickup at venue option "exact ticket pickup location at the venue and the timing will be emailed to you and also be announced in the "Customer Update" section of website closer to the event."
On contacting ticketing partner Kyazoonga, Goal has learnt that the tickets are expected to be dispatched earliest by the last week of September. So the safest bet would be from the first week of October, one should receive the physical copy of the ticket. The same holds in case of those who have booked their tickets over the counter as well.
"We are in constant contact with the managing director of Kyazoonga to ascertain a date," a Local Organising Committee (LOC) official updated Goal. "We should know a proper date after the trophy tour and other promotional events including a seat count by Kyazoonga," the source informed.
"In case of Goa, the ticket sales have already increased by around 15% ever since we launched the box office sales. Some fans were worried about receiving the actual ticket but we would like to assure them that it is better to book their tickets now and avail of the discount than waiting longer and paying the full price."
Till when can fans get their tickets?
Ever since the online tickets sales went live on May 16, Kolkata saw its phase one tickets for all 10 matches sold out in 24 hours. The price of the tickets started from as low as ₹48 as there was a discount of 60%. More than 40,000 tickets were sold in the first phase by the first week of June which included more than half of the inventory of tickets put up for sale wherein Guwahati also exhausted their stock with Kochi recording 60% sales.
In fact, the phase one ticket sales for the above-mentioned venues were extended for three days post July 7th in view of meeting the growing demand while the second phase ran from July 7-21 reserved exclusively for Visa cardholders with a 50% discount.
However, the response was very cold in Goa where only 200 tickets sold in the first two weeks, eventually prompting the LOC to install physical counters that also provided the benefit of 25% discount on individual tickets in order to boost the sale of tickets in the coastal state.
In the current phase (July 21-October 5), Goa remains the only venue to have ticket sales over the counter that began from September 7. Although, closer to the tournament tickets sales are expected over the counters at all venues. The last phase of ticket sales will be for the purpose of purchasing full-price individual tickets for the relevant matchday during the actual course of the competition (October 6-28).