England gear up for South Africa final

The English have long been used to making pilgrimages to France for duty-free drink and cigarettes. Yesterday that cross-Channel trade extended to cup final tickets.

While pairs of tickets for next Saturday’s game were fetching more than £3,000 on British eBay, bidders on the French version of the auction website were paying less than half the price at €2,000 (£1,394). As French fans unloaded their tickets for the final that never was, English fans were more than happy to pick them up.

The tickets to the match, in which England will take on the winners of last night’s semifinal between South Africa and Argentina, come in four categories with a face value of between £75 and £500. Each seat in the 80,000-capacity Stade de France has long been sold, allocated by a random ballot. But that did not stop a roaring trade on both sides of the cyber-space Channel yesterday.

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One ticket in the orange seating area, the third-class category, sold for £1,750 on the British version of eBay. But a ticket in the purple area, the best seats, sold for €1,210 (£843) on the French version.

The trend was repeated across the two websites. At the same time that two tickets sold for £3,200 on British eBay, a similar pair fetched €2,200 (£1,533) on the French site.

Most of the tickets are sold by professional touts, but many are held by French, Australian and New Zealand fans who bought them in expectation of their team reaching the final.

“I do not want to go now that the All Blacks have exited the tournament,” wrote one man who was selling a pair of tickets. “So they might as well go to supporters.”

Another wrote: “Australia not playing so decided to sell my tickets.”

The head of one ticket trading website said that prices began to soar as soon as the final whistle went after England’s victory over France.

“We saw on Saturday night, literally the moment the clock stopped in injury time, boom, we could see people buying and selling tickets immediately,” Eric Baker, chief executive of Viagogo, said.

“For the final, there are still some bargains available where people are selling for as little as £500, and there are some other seats in really prime locations that are going for north of £3,000. This event, with England having won on Saturday night, is the hottest ticket we have seen in the past two years, quite frankly. It is arguably a more coveted ticket than for the Led Zeppelin concert.”

More than 12 million fans tuned in to the final moments of the momentous victory over France, the highest viewing figures for any sporting event this year. Figures showed that 12.4 million people, more than watched the FA Cup Final, watched the television coverage of the last five minutes of the game – 51 per cent of the viewing audience. The match averaged 11.2 million viewers, with an average of 9.6 million watching the full coverage.

Those fans who do shell out for tickets for the final still face astronomical transport costs. More than 40,000 England fans descended on Paris over the weekend and a similar number are expected to journey to the Stade de France for the final.

Eurostar has already laid on seven extra trains to try to meet demand, and said last night that it was considering boosting capacity even more. Fewer freight trains travel through the Channel Tunnel at weekends, freeing up slots. The company reported three times the usual number of bookings on its website yesterday, as some of the 750-capacity trains sold out. A return trip at the weekend will cost at least £299.

A Eurostar spokesman said: “Within an hour of the final whistle 5,000 visitors had logged on to our site, five times the usual number for that time. Tickets are selling very, very quickly, and we advise anyone who wants a seat to book now.”

Demand for flights has also soared, with every British Airways flight returning from Paris on Sunday now sold out. The only outbound flights on Saturday that land in time to see the match cost more than £200.

World Cup organisers have warned supporters not to buy tickets from touts because checks will be made to ensure that only legitimate buyers gain entry, but fans have reported few problems. The biggest worry on eBay yesterday seemed to be the postal strike, with many sellers promising to deliver tickets by hand.

Those fans who do manage to secure tickets, both to the match and across the Channel, face the added problem of finding a bed for the night. The French tourist board has declared Paris to be full, with few of the city’s 45,000 hotel rooms available. But English fans will be hoping that the result will mean that they won’t want to spend time sleeping anyway.