A group of Cook Islands netball supporters were furious after paying $600 for seats only to find their view of the game was blocked by a cameraman.
As a result the fans missed their national team's entire match against Australia yesterday. The tickets covered three days of action.
Rarotongan Ngarangi Pittman and her friends from the Taku Va'ine netball club made the trip to New Zealand this week for the world championships hoping to see their team cause an upset or two along the way.
"We got the upset when we beat Fiji, I don't think anyone expected us to do that so it was a fantastic result," said Ms Pittman, who is also the president of the Cook Islands Netball Association.
But the match they were all looking forward to - and had saved for months to see - was the game against Australia.
"It was a pity because the cameraman seemed to think it was a pretty big game, too, and for some reason he decided to stand right in front of us," said Ms Pittman. "It's just not fair - you don't pay $600 to watch someone's back for the whole game."
Robert Simon, who was among the group, said they "got a bit of lip" from the cameraman, who refused to move.
"He told us to move to other seats but that wasn't what we paid for - it's very, very disappointing because some of the people here had to save quite hard to get here."
Ms Pittman said the cameraman eventually did move but not until the end of the match. They had not been offered a refund but the organisers had done all they could to help them.
Netball World Championships general manager Jane Patterson said 500 seats had been set aside with restricted views because of broadcasting issues.
"Obviously some of these had slipped through, but we are pleased this situation has righted itself fairly quickly."
