A fresh bout of Olympic ticketing scandal has afflicted organisers of the Sydney games, with numerous overseas Web sites scalping up to 200 tickets at a time.
"If anyone is interested, I am selling all 200 of my Olympics tickets since I won't be able to make it," read an e-mail that came into the hands of ZDNet Australia. Attached was a link to a US Web site dedicated to the trade of Olympics seats. The site offered no explanation for why someone would anticipate attending 200 events or why such plans had changed.
"We reserve the right to cancel tickets if we can identify someone who is at the source of unauthorised tickets that have been sold," Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) Ticketing Communications Manager John O'Neill told ZDNet Australia.
If a ticket code is cancelled it is rendered useless, making it onerous for both the trader and the recipient of scalped Olympic tickets.
"If we cancel a ticket we can issue a voucher that will take precedence over that ticket improperly traded," O'Neill said. " So you could turn up at games time and find that someone else has a voucher that takes precedence over the ticket you have purchased through an unofficial agent."
And so, although the Olympics is ubiquitously described as "the world's largest peacetime event" it seems further squabbles are set to arise. "It's very risky to either purchase or sell (unauthorised tickets). There will be a lot of aggravation on either side of the transaction," O'Neill warned.
The US site ZDNet Australia visited -- www.olympictickets.8k.com -- charts exactly which tickets are available for twenty different events ranging from table tennis to swimming. An interested party will find a full schedule of dates, event times, venue and the number of tickets available.
Keen on men's soccer? The site has ten tickets available for a 6.30pm game on September 14. And the price? Well that may be something to haggle about.
The site supplied a telephone number and e-mail address but the ticket seller was unavailable for comment for this article.
SOCOG refused to make any further comments on the unauthorised selling of Olympic tickets.
June 24, 2000
