FIFA released thousands of tickets for this summer’s Women’s World Cup to fans who ordered them online, but the seats they bought, including some of the "most expensive ones for the semifinals and final, are not together," according to Andrew Das of the N.Y. TIMES. Parents discovered they would be "multiple rows away from their young children." Friends and families who "ordered tickets in groups downloaded them to find that they would be scattered in different rows, or even in different sections." At first, FIFA said that orders would "not be modified except for one specific exception: a change could be made for parents whose seats were not next to those of their underage children." However, last night the organization posted two tweets that "appeared to minimize the issue, saying it applied to less than one percent of fans who had applied for tickets to the semifinals and final." Ticket buyers who "called a customer service phone number to seek a resolution were told that their best bet was to arrive at the stadium early on match day and try to swap their tickets with nearby fans" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/21). The AP's Anne Peterson notes it is "customary for most sporting events to allow groups of ticket buyers to choose seats that are together." There was a "limit on the number of World Cup tickets that could be purchased by a single buyer" (AP, 5/21).
