Wednesday April 13, 2005
Sky News
Complaints that many British football fans are having to pay nearly 60% more than the face value for World Cup tickets are being investigated by the European Commission.
The huge price hike has been caused by tight restrictions imposed by the German Football Association on payment methods.
The organisation could face huge fines if the system is decreed illegal by Brussels under EU rules on fair competition.
UK fans have run into the inflated costs when trying to buy tickets over the internet.
They find that Mastercard is the only credit card the World Cup ticket website will accept due to a deal between the credit card company and the German FA.
But there are nearly twice as many Visa card holders in the UK - 42.7 million compared with 24.21 million Mastercard users.
The alternative for fans without Mastercard is to buy a twenty euro - about £14 - charge for an international bank transfer on top of the 35 euros (about £24.50) price of their ticket.
EU competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said any cash penalty levied against the German FA "won't be coffee money" if the rules have been broken.
The effective price hike was condemned by Euro-MP Glyn Ford: "This flies in the face of fairness and EU competition rules, which are designed to protect people like football fans who want to buy tickets from another EU country.
"If the German FA has broken these rules they will have to take swift action to make sure that all fans in the EU are forking out the same amount of cash for their tickets."
Ms Kroes told Mr Ford that she was trying to settle the issue as fast as possible.
