Results of the draw for tickets to the World Cup. The stage of ticket sales for the FIFA World Cup through a random draw has ended

// Photo: official page of the Rostov-Arena stadium "VKontakte"

1. What's the matter?

2. So, sales are already over?

3. So, let's take it in order to understand better. What have I already missed?

5. What does “random drawing” mean?

I remember the evening of December 2, 2010 very well. Sitting in front of the TV, I nervously twirled the remote control in my hands and waited for the host country of the World Cup to be announced.

“No one will let us win, the Winter Games are enough,” my long-time friend assured me.

We, two carefree third-year students, could talk for hours about the Russian application, find arguments why the championship could not be held in our country, in order to protect ourselves from unnecessary hopes. Then the Olympics, for which Sochi was preparing in full swing, seemed fantastic. But the dream of the World Cup, a great celebration of football, grew every day and on December 2, our prayers were answered - Russia was declared the host of the World Cup. Delight!

All we had to do was wait eight years, that’s exactly how long separated us from our dream.

During this time, we grew up, even went to the Olympics, started working, started families, a lot has changed, except for the frantic desire to become part of the opening match or final at the home World Cup.

Every dream has a price. In this case it is quite specific. It was announced in advance. They even introduced a special category of affordable tickets for Russians. You could get to the final for 7,040 rubles, and to the opening match for only 3,200 wooden ones. I don’t care that these places are on the top floors behind the gates. The main thing is to be where billions of people will look these days. Other tickets cost significantly more. From 13,200 for the opening and up to 66,000 rubles for the final.

It was quite expected that there would clearly be more people interested than there were tickets. Therefore, the organizers came up with a scheme for selling tickets in several stages - two of which turned out to be, in fact, the most ordinary lottery.

You leave a request for no more than six matches and wait to see if the stars align and the right lot comes up.

The first random draw took place before the cities even knew which teams would play on their fields. But we were only interested in the opening match and the final. The Russian national team will definitely play in the first, but it definitely won’t be in the second. After standing in a half-hour queue to enter the site to purchase tickets (yes, there is such a thing), I submit my application among the first, its serial number is 225. I choose the most inexpensive category. Maybe you'll get lucky!

The rules clearly state that the time of application does not decide anything, everyone has equal chances. But for some reason I believe that earlier is better.

I check my email every day. The first letter - get ready, they may start debiting your money soon. Account replenished, tedious waiting. I’m looking on social networks in groups and tags for at least some information from people just like me. Some have already received confirmation, some smiled at the finale, envy.

Thank you for your interest in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Unfortunately, your Application for the purchase of Tickets was not successful in the Random Ticket Draw, and therefore you were not allocated the Tickets you requested - this letter arrives exactly two months after my first application. Luck is not on my side this time.

The organizers assure you, it’s okay, try again! A new stage of sales will begin soon - on a first-come, first-served basis. OK.

Morning of November 16, my phone has an alarm for 11:00. You need to get in line and get tickets for the final at all costs.

“You are now in line for the site. When it's your turn, you will have 10 minutes to enter the site. You will be able to access the site in: more than an hour,” reads the inscription on the FIFA website.

I’ve waited eight years and I’ll wait another hour, it’s okay,” I reassure myself.

The page opens and I see that there are no fourth category tickets for any of the matches; the seats for the matches of the Russian national team are almost completely sold out. And at the end and opening they simply light up red - “this product is not available for reservation.”

The organizers will later write in a press release that more than 740 thousand tickets have been distributed in the first two stages. Many of them simply bought tickets for a specific date and city. The fans only found out which match they got on December 1 after the draw. Some got to play Portugal and Spain in Sochi, and others played Panama and Tunisia in Saransk. At this stage, I didn’t try my luck, I really wanted to seize the dwindling chances of being at the final at Luzhniki.

The draw put everything in its place. Now the fans knew exactly where their favorites would play and planned their routes. I clearly have more competitors, not just for the final, but simply for a good match in nearby Sochi.

The dream of the finale has practically melted away. Trying to grab the bird by the tail, I am filling out a full application - Portugal - Spain in Sochi, Brazil - Switzerland in Rostov, Russia - Egypt in St. Petersburg, Serbia - Brazil in Moscow, England - Belgium in Kaliningrad, 1/8 final match in Sochi and semi-finals In Petersburg. At least one match must fall out of the fourth category!

By the end of the application period, FIFA happily reported an unprecedented rush. Just imagine - 4 million fans applied for tickets. My chances were becoming completely slim. It turned out that for some games there was a competition among fans of 90 people per seat. And in the thoughts of each of them - “take my money and give me the opportunity to attend the World Cup.”

In March, many again began to write about their luck on social networks; they were given tickets, and they even managed to pay for them. One, as it turned out, my smarter friend did not rely on the fourth category for Russians and asked for third category tickets. So for just 10 thousand rubles he will get to the match for third place in St. Petersburg. Colleagues and acquaintances who were hoping to snag a ticket for 1,280 rubles, just like me, remained in the dark.

Thank you for your interest in the FIFA World Cup in Russia. Unfortunately, your Ticket Application was not successful in the Random Draw during the Second Sales Stage (2), and therefore you were not allocated the Tickets you requested - the second letter and again the application crossed out in red. Just a mockery.

All my friends who were counting on fourth category tickets received the same letters. Do they even exist? Respond, lucky ones!

Morning of March 13th. Tickets should go on sale again on a first-come, first-served basis. Taught by bitter experience, I try to take a seat in advance. But the painfully familiar site and the little man were in no hurry. The waiting time is more than an hour. In fact, I only managed to get to the ticket selection page at 19:00, eight hours later! There was nothing left to choose there; there was not even any talk about the final and the opening match. The only attractive thing is the semi-final in St. Petersburg for 25 thousand rubles. While I was making vacation budget calculations in my head, someone stole these tickets. The choice of tickets was only for one match - Panama - Tunisia in Saransk.

Later it turned out that the long wait was a system failure.

We apologize to all fans who spent many hours waiting before logging onto the ticketing platform. Demand during this first-come, first-serve sales period turned out to be incredibly high, which is why many of you waited several hours to get through the line,” organizers apologized on social media.

There are very few opportunities left ahead to get a ticket. But they exist, and you need to be prepared for developments. If you, like me, haven’t bought it or won it yet, but really want to get to the World Championship, be careful.

To date, the most expensive tickets for the most unpopular matches remain on sale - Iceland - Croatia, Nigeria - Iceland, Uruguay - Saudi Arabia, Tunisia - England, Croatia - Nigeria. There are six days left until the end of sales.

The final stage of the sale will begin on April 18. Around the same time, a ticket resale platform will open, where fans who have purchased tickets but are unable to attend the match will have the opportunity to put their tickets up for sale. This is perhaps the last chance to snag the opportunity to get to the final or opening match. And this chance seems to be much less than winning the lottery.

P.S. And, most importantly, you can only buy tickets on the FIFA.com/Ticket page. All other resources may be ordinary scammers.

Demand for tickets to the 2018 World Cup is almost six times higher than supply. Experts believe that this is due to the suspicious activity of resellers and speculators who want to make money on cheap tickets (especially for Russians, they are sold on the official website for only 1,280 rubles).

The most “football” countries are Israel and Finland

FIFA has summed up the results of the next stage of pre-sale of tickets for the FIFA World Cup, the final part of which will be held in Russia from June 14 to July 15. The only way to buy tickets (including the opening match and final) is on the official FIFA website.

The first stage of sales started on September 14 and lasted a month: during this time, preliminary applications were collected, from which those for which tickets were sold were selected by random drawing. On the first day, according to FIFA, fans from all over the world requested more than half a million tickets on the official website, of which 50 thousand were submitted for the final game, and 40 thousand for the opening match.

As for the price, of course, the highest demand was for the cheapest tickets: especially for Russians, they were sold for 1,280 rubles. But this amount also includes the cost of delivery (purchased tickets are delivered free of charge just before the start of the tournament). The most expensive tickets are the first category (best seats) for the final, which will take place on July 15 at Luzhniki. They cost 66 thousand rubles!

FIFA also tested new types of services for the first time: selling ticket packages for a specific stadium. Moreover, they bought tickets at the first stage blindly - the first stage of ticket sales ended even before the final draw, when it was unknown which team was playing on which day. But even so, the demand turned out to be huge.

FIFA introduced strict restrictions: one person could buy no more than four tickets for one match or tickets for no more than seven matches. Even so, according to FIFA estimates, almost 3.5 million requests were received from fans during the first stage of sales. This turned out to be almost six times the number of tickets (in total, just over 623 thousand were sold).

Almost half of them remained in Russia, the remaining half “flew” abroad: individual countries in Europe (England, France, Finland, Germany), Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Brazil), Asia (Israel, China, Morocco, Egypt), as well as the USA and Australia.

Did France and England stop liking football?

Immediately after the draw, FIFA launched the second stage of ticket sales, which started on December 5 and ended two days ago. This time, fans did not buy tickets blindly, but knowing exactly which team would play on a certain day in one of 12 stadiums.

However, this time it was no longer possible to buy tickets online for the opening match and the final game. But all applications had an equal chance of success, regardless of the date of submission. And this time, in two months, football fans from all over the world requested almost 4.9 million tickets from FIFA (and almost 1.3 million on the first day of sales).

In terms of the number of tickets requested, according to FIFA estimates, Russia was again in the lead (2.5 million applications), followed by fans from Germany (338 thousand), Argentina (186 thousand), Mexico (155 thousand), Brazil (141 thousand) , Poland (129 thousand), Spain (111 thousand), Peru (100 thousand), Colombia (88 thousand), USA (87 thousand) and Holland (71 thousand).

The remaining million applications came from other countries. Although, as you can see, several countries were excluded from the list of those who especially wanted to get to the 2018 World Cup, including France and England, who are ardently fond of football. I wonder why?!

FIFA will now have to conduct a random draw of the received applications. The procedure is long, and fans will find out whether they got the coveted ticket until mid-March. Well, then the last, “consolation” stage of sales will begin - this time on a first-come, first-served basis. Whoever had time, ate it.

Moreover, tickets will be sold not even before the start, but until the very end of the tournament (the final, we remind you, is July 15). Apparently, there will still be a supply of the best tickets in the FIFA “special storage” especially for this purpose. And one can only imagine their astronomical prices.

Expert: expect ticket speculation

On social networks, Russian fans are dissatisfied with the fact that, following the results of the first stage of FIFA sales, they did not receive the coveted ticket. There are so many similar stories that the question inevitably arises: where do you put all the cheap tickets specially printed for Russia?

The answer is simple - speculators have them. Already now, portals like Avito are full of advertisements for the resale of tickets. And there is no doubt that closer to the start of the tournament there will be an order of magnitude more of them: a spoon is on its way to dinner.

Even the State Duma (where, apparently, there are also quite a few football fans) became preoccupied with the problem, which made “temporary” amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences: now individuals face fines in the amount of 25 times the cost of the ticket (but not less than 50 thousand rubles) for speculating with World Cup tickets at a time), and the legal entity will be charged a fine of up to 1 million rubles to the state. And rightly so!

— Demand for tickets to the 2018 FIFA World Cup is high. And in such situations, you can always observe an excess of the number of people wishing to exceed the number of tickets, — told in an interview with Free Press commercial director of the ticket agency "Parter.ru" Vadim Lipatov. - Naturally, this is the basis for the interest of resellers (professional resellers). But price inflation is possible only on the secondary market, as well as falling back (if demand is satisfied).

There is no doubt that such a practice will take place, since tickets will quickly be snapped up by those who will resell them at an inflated price. There will definitely be people willing to buy them. But this is only the secondary market - it is unlikely that FIFA will increase official ticket prices. At the moment, there are no prerequisites for this, and practice suggests the opposite - usually the prices for such events are fixed.