FIFA will on Thursday till 28 November, resume ticket sales for the world’s biggest single-sporting event in Russia next year.
The sales will open online at 12:00 Moscow time (10:00 Central European Time), on a first-come, first-served basis, FIFA said on its website.
Already, 622,117 tickets were successfully allocated (subject to payment) upon conclusion of the first window of sales’ phase 1 on 12 October 2017.
Some 3,496,204 tickets had initially been requested with many ticket products and matches being heavily oversubscribed, requiring 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 that 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 (of a maximum of 4 tickets for up to 7 matches).
From the total number of applications, the majority have come from Russia, and based on the results of the Random Selection Draw process 57 per cent of tickets were allocated to Russian fans.
Tickets allocated to international fans account for 43 per cent of the total number of allocated tickets and the US, Chinese, German, Brazilian, Israeli, English, Finnish, Mexican and French fans all rank in the top ten.
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During the upcoming sales period, fans will be able to purchase tickets in real time on FIFA.com/tickets with immediate confirmation of successful applications, subject to availability.
Football fans are advised to place their order as soon as the sales period opens, as high demand is expected and the remaining inventory following the random selection draw sales period is 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, with deliveries planned to start in April/May 2018 (subject to change).
Tickets may be purchased using payment cards of Visa, the Official Payment Services Partner of FIFA, or by other accepted payment methods.
“We have been 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 would like to once again stress that the only official, legitimate and at the same time 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 would not want that to happen,” says FIFA Head of Ticketing Falk Eller.
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 due to the full allocation of the currently available category 4 tickets during the previous sales period.
