"The entire Mexican nation wants tickets to the Korea match!"
Korean soccer fans' plans to attend the North America World Cup in Mexico in person look unlikely to be easy.
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) announced on Feb. 14 that applications for tickets to this North America World Cup exceeded 500 million. This is an unprecedented figure in World Cup history. Global interest in the tournament has reached an all-time high.
In particular, the excitement in the host country Mexico is the hottest. In the third sales phase, held from Dec. 11 to Jan. 13, the Mexico-South Korea match on June 18 in Guadalajara, Mexico, recorded the second-highest demand overall. This was because Mexican fans' demand to see the Mexico national team at home surged. The top spot was the Colombia-Portugal match (June 27·Miami Gardens).
It has become very difficult for Korean fans to obtain tickets and travel to Mexico to watch the World Cup in person. That is because they must compete with Mexico's population of 130 million people. Ticket prices are also skyrocketing.
FIFA plans to notify applicants of ticket results individually starting Feb. 5. For matches where applications exceed available seats, tickets will be allocated by a random draw. Korean fans, too, will have to rely on lottery-level slim luck to secure tickets for the national team's matches.
Of course, each national association is allocated tickets. But it is virtually impossible to accommodate all Korean fans with only a few hundred tickets. That means Korea could be overwhelmed by Mexico in the cheering section.
Ticket prices are also skyrocketing. FIFA was criticized after some premium seats were priced up to $8,680 (about 1,277,000 won). After strong backlash, it announced last month that it would allocate $60 (about 80,000 won) tickets per match to the soccer associations of 48 participating countries. These tickets will be distributed by each national association mainly to fans who have a history of attending previous matches of their national team.
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