FIFA warns about phoney World Cup tickets

FIFA has warned consumers to be careful of misleading promotions for next year's FIFA World Cup in Germany. In a statement it said "no tickets must be transferred or used for advertising, sales or promotional purposes, or as a premium, give-away, competition or sweepstake prize, except where they are used in legitimate, authorised commercial activities by FIFA’s commercial affiliates". Official Partners are Adidas, Avaya, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Continental, Deutsche Telekom, Emirates, Fujifilm, Gillette, Hyundai, MasterCard, McDonald’s, Philips, Toshiba, Yahoo! as well as the Official Suppliers within Germany - Deutsche Bahn, EnBW, Hamburg-Mannheimer, OBI, ODDSET and Postbank.

FIFA warned that tickets obtained from illicit ticket promotions will be automatically subject to a possible cancellation and the ticket holder risks being refused entry to or expulsion from the stadium. FIFA is also taking steps to tackle forgeries. It says tickets will be equipped with new RFID chip technology, to make forgeries difficult to produce. In addition, match tickets will not be printed until a few weeks before the opening match in Munich on 9 June 2006.

Comprehensive and up-to-date information regarding match tickets, including the full version of the GTCs, can be found on the official event website, www.FIFAworldcup.com.