Happy ticket holders // Photo epa
Everyone go to away games! The times when fans diligently attended only home matches of their favorite club have hopelessly sunk into oblivion. Today it is somehow not respectable to support without European away trips. And not visiting a couple of neighboring matches in parallel is also unsportsmanlike - if you support, then support properly, you need to study the nuances of the opponents' play! Yes, aestheticism has even affected such a brutal sport as football - today it is fashionable to enjoy the quality of the game. Quality at any cost - both through individual players and through team cohesion. The modern Fan with a capital F needs spectacle, confidence, speed, or at the very least, drama in the game. And at the World Cup level, in any match there will be preferences and antipathies, just give the opportunity to watch it!
Of course, we are still far from the powerful scale in organizing special tours for fans, in the form that foreigners have long been practicing. Take, for example, the 50 charter flights that literally flooded Porto when the English team fought against the Portuguese in 2004? People came for a day, for a single match. By the way, after the hosts won, the fans from the shores of foggy Albion, enraged by their team's defeat, were quickly and carefully loaded onto the same 50 planes to prevent any trouble. Now we also organize tours to the 2006 World Cup, but unfortunately, so far only selected travel companies, and very expensive.
Domestic travel agencies at the 2006 World Cup prefer to sell expensive weekly packages with accommodation in expensive four-star hotels. But the issue is not even that, but that most travel agencies announcing tours to the 2006 World Championship do not include the most valuable thing in the package - tickets! If you look closely at the vast majority of 'tempting' offers costing €1.500-4.500, apart from phrases like 'transfer to the stadium in Berlin for the World Cup final', there are no other mentions of the games.
The fact is that officially travel agencies do not have the right to guarantee attendance at matches - no travel agency should sell tickets. For the 2006 World Cup, FIFA changed the ticket sales rules. If earlier up to 1/3 of tickets were ordinary, now they are all personalized. That is, they indicate not only the full name, address, but also passport data. The new distribution system narrows the scope of fraud around admission tickets. So, if the surname indicated on the ticket does not correspond to the one in the passport, the ticket will be considered invalid. Therefore, buying a ticket for someone else's name at a travel agency is more expensive for yourself. The only one at risk here is the fan himself.
Most companies take a relatively honest path. And in fine print they write that they are engaged in booking tickets for matches on behalf of their clients. There is not much meaning in this for the client, except maybe a small help (for huge percentages) to computer-illiterate fans who are unable to submit their application themselves. Essentially, the tourist simply buys back his own ticket from the company...
Another method is more sophisticated and expensive: a travel agency tries to 'pull out' a ticket from a football federation using a chain of connections. Here the principle applies: 'whoever gave more and earlier gets the ticket.' It is clear that its cost will differ significantly from the official one. Citizens-fans, remember! The salvation of ticketless fans is the work of the ticketless fans themselves!
For 'wild' fans. Those who can get a visa to Germany without intermediaries will not find it difficult to go on a trip on their own. Inside the country, you can use the German railway Deutsche Bahn, which has developed two special packages for the World Cup: Weltmeister-Ticket - round-trip travel to any city of the championship for €54. And Weltmeister-Pass - unrestricted movement between all German cities for €349. Or rent a car.
The cost of hotel services, of course, has jumped sharply for the duration of the championship, and a double room in a three-star hotel in Berlin or Hamburg is hard to find for less than €80-90. Most domestic travel agencies offer hotels for as much as €150-250 per day, but with a guarantee of accommodation. Economical fans should look for apartments for rent. In principle, even now you can find offers for €50-60 per night (on regular, non-championship days they cost €25-30).
Perhaps the most difficult thing in organizing your own tour is buying tickets for the match. There are three official ways to get to world-class football. Let's say right away that the third, most hopeless one, is to win a ticket in drawings from championship sponsors (20% of tickets). The second is for optimists - buy a ticket before a specific match at stadium box offices. The most realistic and simple way is to order a ticket on the official website of the Organizing Committee, which operates under the patronage of FIFA - www.fifaworldcup.com. This can be done directly on the website, or by sending a request by fax or mail. Ticket sales have already passed four draws, and alas, there is information that the lion's share of the 3.5 million tickets has been sold. On May 1, 2006, the final, fifth round began - the last chance to purchase tickets until July 9 inclusive. Both MasterCard credit cards and bank transfers are accepted for payment.
Tickets for preliminary group games cost from €35 to €100. They say that such cheap tickets have not been seen at World Cups in recent decades. True, for €35 you can only get seats in the stands behind the goals, where the most fanatical fans usually sit.
By the way, one more nuance: when going to the World Cup or another sporting event, it would not be superfluous to visit an online sports store, where you can purchase the necessary merchandise or souvenirs for your foreign friends. Remember that on the trip - directly at the venue of the competitions - all this will cost much more.
Football, as is known, is a game in which two teams of 11 players play, and the Germans win. No one knows how Germany will play in the upcoming championship, but as the host, it is already at an advantage. 64 matches will cover 12 stadiums from June 9 to July 9, 2006. It will all start with a match between the national teams of Germany and Costa Rica in Munich on June 9. The semifinals will take place in Dortmund and Munich. The third-place match will be held in Stuttgart. And the final will take place in Berlin on July 9.