Soccer: World Cup is just the ticket

More than 35,000 fans cheered on the All Whites against Bahrain in November but only a few hundred may follow the team to South Africa for the World Cup finals. Photo / Getty Images

Close to 4500 tickets have so far been sold to Kiwis heading to June's World Cup in South Africa after the third of five phases of ticket sales last weekend.

Fifa said 1842 tickets were sold to New Zealanders in the first two phases, as well as 962 tickets sold through New Zealand Football as a PMA (participating member association), bringing the total up to 2768.

Another 1862 applications for tickets were received during the third phase and, while they won't be confirmed until tomorrow, should be a formality.

New Zealand is allocated 12 per cent of tickets for each of the All Whites' three games against Slovakia in Rustenburg, Italy in Nelspruit and Paraguay in Polokwane.

Each stadium holds between 40,000 and 45,000, meaning New Zealanders could apply for about 5000 tickets for each game with little danger of missing out.

"Those are pretty healthy numbers," New Zealand Football chief executive Michael Glading said of Fifa's figures.

"Travel agents have said to us that the most we are likely to get from this part of the world would be about 1700. That's a guesstimate, rather than any science or research, but there's no way 5000 will be going from New Zealand so about 1500 already is good."

This is greatly above estimates from Williment Travel Group director Ross Jamieson, who believed only 200 people would travel from New Zealand to the World Cup. Jamieson thought this number would rise to about 500 when Kiwis living abroad were taken into account.

"I think if New Zealand got away 200 people, that would be a pretty good result," Jamieson said. "When the ABs travel to the UK, we send anywhere between 40 and 400 depending on the type of tour. I think 200 is a lot when it costs that sort of money."

Williments tout themselves as the only official Fifa agents and have put together an 18-day tour that takes in, among other things, New Zealand's three games, a visit to the Kruger National Park and six days in Cape Town, for about $18,000.

Other travel agencies have also put packages together, including tours led by former All Whites Danny Hay and Riki Van Steeden, while the Wellington Phoenix supporters group Yellow Fever have also put together a tour party.

Yellow Fever spokesman Guy Smith said they had as many as 75 confirmed on their tour and they were having to turn others away because of limited accommodation. Their 15-day package cost $8000 and included tickets, flights, accommodation and transfers.

"We would have cracked 100, easy," Smith said. "We already have 30 on the waiting list. I don't think the New Zealand contingent [of fans] will be huge but it will be reasonable considering how expensive it is."

Fifa announced last Wednesday two million tickets, or about two-thirds of all tickets, had been sold.

Six games had been over-subscribed, including the final and semifinals, while 55 matches were over-subscribed in at least one category.

This led Local Organising Committee boss Danny Jordaan to lash out at reports that had said ticket sales were going poorly.

"First you said the stadiums will never be finished, that was your perception," Jordaan told reporters.

"The reality is all the stadiums are done. Then you said we are going to run out of money before everything is in place. It did not happen. Then you said no one is going to buy the tickets and now we say we've sold over two million and we have 900,000 and we're going to sell every ticket."

The next ticketing phase starts on February 9, when more than 400,000 tickets will be made available.