FIFA has agreed to increase the 2010 World Cup tickets quota to 90 for the Tanzanian fans wishing to travel all the way to South Africa to watch the championship that kicks off in June.
The Tanzania Football Federation’s (TFF) information officer, Florian Kaijage, said the additional tickets are on top of the earlier supply of 290 which is already sold out.
After exhausting the sales of the tickets, TFF applied for more tickets to meet the growing demand for local fans as time is running out for the first ever World Cup to be staged in African soil.
Kaijage said most of the fans had requested for tickets involving matches from the quarter-finals to the final.
The second batch of the added tickets is earmarked for the first semi-final match to be played at Cape Town’s Green Point Stadium on July 6.
Kaijage said the minimum price for the tickets is $250 and the maximum hits at $600.
The tickets will be sold on first in first out (FIFO) basis to those fans who had submitted the request earlier and the balance for the rest of the applicants.
Kaijage announced that those still in need to purchase the tickets are supposed to visit the TFF offices to complete the transaction ahead of the April 2 deadline.
He said a ten percent surcharge will be paid for each of the tickets to facilitate administration and meeting cost of remitting the money to FIFA.
The ticket transactions will be paid in American dollars and not any other currency.
Tanzanians have been left as mere spectators in the championship that would see six of the continent’s teams joining the fray for the title.
Besides the host nation, other African countries that have qualified to compete in the 32 nations championship are Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Algeria.
Despite deploying a Brazilian trainer four years ahead of the World Cup, Tanzania national soccer team has crumbled to a series of defeats that left them outside the bracket for the qualifiers.
