World Cup ticket sales get underway

South Korea, co-host of the 2002 World Cup with Japan, began selling tickets to the world soccer festival to local fans Thursday.

The Korean World Cup Organizing Committee (KOWOC) held an event to commemorate the start of ticket sales at the Mugyo-dong branch of the H&CB.

Participants in the function included co-chairmen of the KOWOC Chung Mong-Joon and Lee Yun-Taek as well as Peter Velappan, secretary general of the Asian Football Confederation.

A total of 741,000 tickets will be sold in Korea, 230,000 of which are up for grabs between now and March 14. The second and third rounds of sales will take place in September this year and in February 2002, respectively. The remaining tickets will be sold at the stadiums during the World Cup, which kicks off May 31, 2002.

Application forms for the coveted tickets are available at the KOWOC, publicity centers of the 10 cities hosting World Cup games, Korea Football Association (KFA) and 16 city and provincial branches of KFA, Adidas, Fuji Color Plaza, Hyundai Motor, H&CB, Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance, Interpark. The forms can be turned in at the H&CB main office and branches and at the Interpark ticket sales center. Successful applicants will be chosen through a draw.

Meanwhile, the acceptance of online ticket applications, which was to start at midnight, was postponed due to technical problems with Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)¡¯s World Cup Internet site (www.fifaworldcup.com).

A KOWOC spokesman said, "Technical problems occurred in the course of building the Korean and Japanese language parts of the site and it will take two or three days to solve them. But there is no problem at all in accepting applications through the Internet abroad.¡¯¡¯