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Friday, July 14, 2023

FIFA WWC: Sponsor to give out 20,000 tickets as New Zealand struggles with sales

A bigger issue is that football is not popular in New Zealand, making it difficult to get crowds to stadiums during the coldest months of the year.

• July 13, 2023
FIFA Women's World Cup (Credit: Sky Sports)
FIFA Women’s World Cup (Credit: Sky Sports)

As ticket sales for the Women’s World Cup in New Zealand continue to be slow in a nation where rugby predominates as the national sport, a sponsor is giving away 20,000 seats to the games.

According to FIFA, 1.25 million tickets have been sold for games in the cohost nations of Australia and New Zealand.

In New Zealand, 320,000 tickets have been sold. However, just six of those events are nearly sold out.

On Thursday, a tournament partner, the accounting business Xero, announced that it would provide 5,000 complimentary tickets to each of New Zealand’s four stadiums.

FIFA is “comfortable” with the current rate of ticket sales in New Zealand, Women’s World Cup chief executive Dave Beeche told the New Zealand Herald. Due to greater coverage of the competition, he claimed that sales had surged recently.

“Naturally, there are some games that are experiencing higher demand with the Kiwis and some of the top-ranked teams,” Beeche said, “but we’re happy with how the progress is overall.”

Despite total sales being ahead of the 2019 World Cup in France, FIFA’s head of women’s football Sarai Bareman said last month she had some reservations about the pace of ticket sales in New Zealand.

According to Bareman, sales in Australia have increased due to support for the Australian women’s team, which is a legitimate title challenger in contrast to the Football Ferns of New Zealand, who have never won a World Cup group game.

A bigger issue is that football is not popular in New Zealand, making it difficult to get crowds to stadiums during the coldest months of the year.

The All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby side, will take on South Africa in Auckland on Saturday in a game that easily could have sold out multiple times over.

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