Soccer fans flood phone lines looking for tickets

[tokyojoe]

Desperate soccer fans made a whopping 2 million calls to Japan's World Cup organizing committee to buy unsold tickets for the Japan-Russia match in just three minutes from 12 noon Friday.

The flood of calls disrupted telephone lines in some parts of Japan. The 750 unsold tickets for the Japan-Russia match held on Sunday sold out in only 20 minutes, officials of JAWOC, the World Cup organizing body said.

Two major mobile phone operators, NTT DoCoMo and J-Phone, also experienced temporary breakdowns.

JAWOC offered tickets over the phone for the Japan-Russia match, the Italy-Croatia match and the game between Mexico and Ecuador.

The 1,600 tickets for the Italy-Croatia match slated for Saturday sold out in 45 minutes, JAWOC officials said. (Mainichi Shimbun, June 7, 2002)