FIFA satisfied with high tempo of World Cup ticket sales

The worlds governing football body, FIFA, is satisfied with the progress in ticket sales for the 2018 World Cup, which kicks off in 11 cities across Russia this June, a FIFA official said on Tuesday.

FIFA Director of Competitions Colin Smith, who is currently in Yekaterinburg on an inspection visit with a delegation of FIFA experts, said the organisation was pleased with the high tempo of ticket sales for matches in all the selected Russian cities, reports Tass news agency.

Smith said he hoped that the high tempo of tickets sales would be preserved in the future until all of the remaining tickets were sold.

The FIFA official also expressed his strong belief by stating that football stadiums in all 11 hosting cities across Russia would be ready for the upcoming 2018 World Cup.

According to FIFA, over 1.6 million tickets have been already allocated worldwide for the football championship in Russia.

The FIFA announced in its statement last week on Monday that an aggregate sum of 1,303,616 tickets had been already allocated after both periods of Phase 1 and the first period of Phase 2 of ticket sales.

The organization announced two days later that a total of 356,700 tickets for matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia were sold in one day after the launch of the second period of Phase 2.

The second period of Phase 2 of ticket sales, dubbed as the 'First-come, first served,' opened on March 13 at 12:00 Moscow time (9:00 am GMT) to provide sales services until its closure on April 3.

Phase 3, dubbed as the "Last Minute Sales," will run from April 18 up until the final match day of the competition and the remaining tickets will be available for purchase on a first-come first-serve basis.

Ticket prices for FIFA Confederations and World Cup tournaments are usually divided into three categories and the global football organization visas the price for each category.

A special fourth category, which is the cheapest compared to the others, was especially introduced by FIFA in July 2016 and was reserved only for residents of the hosting country.

--IANS

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