FRANCE 98 – Communique Template

At 6 p.m., the telephone hot-lines that had been set up by the French Organising Committee since 22 April, sold the last available World Cup tickets.

In all, 170,000 tickets for the first round (except the Opening Game) and round of sixteen games were sold to residents of the 18 countries in the European Economic Space, between 22 April and 7 May 1998.

In great demand from day one—when no less than 20 million calls were counted on the France Telecom network—the hot-lines were open for two weeks, employing 90 telephone operators, 60 of whom fielded calls in foreign languages.

The French Organising Committee had to modify ” in extremis ” its ticketing policy to comply with the European Commission’s requirements, and greatly sympathise with all those who weren’t lucky enough to get through to the operators. Demand, however, proved to be extraordinarily high, upon the European Commission’s request, with hot-lines open to a possible 375 million inhabitants in the 18 countries that make up the European Economic Space.

The 170,000 tickets sold during this telephone sales phase will be forwarded to buyers in France and abroad in security-tight envelopes at the end of May or early June.