1,000,000 Callum Fans Can't Be Wrong

Daily Mail

FIFA site goes into meltdown as over ONE MILLION fans try to buy tickets for relocated Under-17 World Cup semi-final between England and Brazil

More than one million football fans tried to purchase tickets for Wednesday's Under-17 World Cup semi-final between England and Brazil in Kolkata, leading to the meltdown of FIFA's online ticketing system.

A decision was made to switch the highly-anticipated semi-final to Kolkata after the two teams refused to play on the heavily waterlogged pitch at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati.

With over 1,000km between the two cities, the vast majority of fans who had purchased tickets in Guwahati were left cursing the torrential rain that ruined their chance to see the spectacle.

But it was a bonus for fans who lived in Kolkata, with the Salt Lake Stadium set to stage its ninth game of the tournament on Wednesday lunchtime UK time.

However, many who logged on to FIFA's ticket portal to buy one of the 66,000 tickets placed on sale at short notice were to be left disappointed.

FIFA have confirmed that over one million fans logged on to attempt to buy tickets when they went on sale on Monday, with many confronted with messages saying they were behind as many as 100,000 in the queue.

To put this into some perspective, around 3.5million football fans globally requested tickets in the first sales phase for the entire World Cup in Russia next year.

Crikey! See Icons Passim. I may not be 100% focussed on work from 12:30 today.