Anxious fans waiting for World Cup tickets

By ANDY BREW

With only 11 days to go before the start of the World Cup, many rugby fans have yet to receive their tickets.

A delay in the printing and distribution of tickets has New Zealand travel agents nervously wondering whether clients will have their tickets before they leave for Australia.

The organisation of this year's tournament has been described as "worrying" and an "unacceptable inefficiency" by some of New Zealand's official ticketing agents.

Although some agents have been assured they will receive tickets in time for the pool stages of the competition, there is still no sign of tickets for the knock-out rounds.

Andrea Stephens of Gullivers Pacific, an official World Cup agent, said it had received a letter from the IRB last week citing printing and packaging problems as the cause for the delay and was told to "hang five", however, she was far from reassured,

"We are worried, everybody is worried, we've got our first departures leaving next week."she said.

Rugby Logistics is in charge of the printing and distribution of tickets.

But not everybody is convinced that printing delays are to blame. Duncan Garvie, of Williment World Travel, said Australians have had no problems in getting tickets,

"It's not a ticket printing issue. If you go to Australian websites and have an address there, you can have them [tickets] in five working days."

Mr Garvie said the same problem had occurred at the last cup and the IRB has had four years to fix it.

"It's an unacceptable inefficiency. As an organisation, they [the IRB] need to take a long hard look at themselves. It is a totally unprofessional way to run a tournament." he said.

The World Cup, which is expected to attract tens of thousands of fans to the matches as well as a worldwide television audience of four billion people in 205 countries, kicks off on October 10, with New Zealand's first game against Italy, taking place in Melbourne on October 11.

The IRB said it was confident of meeting its October 6 deadline for the distribution of tickets for the knock-out stages, but not everybody shares this confidence.

The Guardian newspaper in England reported similar difficulties, with many fans leaving for Australia without their tickets.

The paper quoted John Hall, managing director of Gulliver's Sports Travel, which has organised around 3000 England fans to travel to Australia and see the World Cup, as saying all three major organisers were passing the buck.

"Rugby Logistics blame the Australian Rugby Union who blame the IRB and so it goes round." he said.

Many ticket agents, including Mr Garvie, are also upset at extra costs they will incur, going to Australia themselves to pick up tickets and then couriering them to their clients.

"We are going over to pick up what tickets there are," said Mr Garvie. "We paid royalties to the IRB last year and they were very persistent we stick to our side of the contract. It's hardly professional practice."

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