Australian fans desperate for World Cup tickets caused a meltdown of the official website yesterday. Football Federation Australia said the first-come, first-served system for the sale of only 8,500 tickets held up well considering that between 9am and 9.10am, the web page was accessed about 60,000 times, with around 10,000 applications arriving electronically before 9.30am.
A message soon appeared on the federation's travel website asking applicants not to call the inquiries line, which had been swamped. By the afternoon 22,000 applications had been received, many of them for more than one person. The federation said the website had never gone down, but had been operating slowly because of the volume of traffic.
"The systems survived that very, very heavy traffic," the federation's chief executive John O'Neill told Ben Cubby of The Age. "It's quite an overwhelming response and a spectacular demand for World Cup tickets … We said last Friday that demand would exceed supply and it's certainly done that."
UPDATE
Rob Tolson, the brother of one of the 1974 Socceroo World Cup squad, Max Tolson, was the first Australian football fan to secure tickets to the World Cup in Germany. Rob, one of 22,446 applicants scrambling for just the 8,500 tickets, was the first chosen in what he described as "family justice".
FFA Travel, a joint venture between travel group The Fanatics and Football Federation Australia, had processed three quarters of the tickets as of 2pm Friday, with the successful applicants informed via e-mail throughout the afternoon, SBS Sports reported. The tickets range from A$ 50 for a single game to a A$ 7,000 12-day all-inclusive tour package (24 Dec).
A message soon appeared on the federation's travel website asking applicants not to call the inquiries line, which had been swamped. By the afternoon 22,000 applications had been received, many of them for more than one person. The federation said the website had never gone down, but had been operating slowly because of the volume of traffic."The systems survived that very, very heavy traffic," the federation's chief executive John O'Neill told Ben Cubby of The Age. "It's quite an overwhelming response and a spectacular demand for World Cup tickets … We said last Friday that demand would exceed supply and it's certainly done that."
UPDATE
Rob Tolson, the brother of one of the 1974 Socceroo World Cup squad, Max Tolson, was the first Australian football fan to secure tickets to the World Cup in Germany. Rob, one of 22,446 applicants scrambling for just the 8,500 tickets, was the first chosen in what he described as "family justice".
FFA Travel, a joint venture between travel group The Fanatics and Football Federation Australia, had processed three quarters of the tickets as of 2pm Friday, with the successful applicants informed via e-mail throughout the afternoon, SBS Sports reported. The tickets range from A$ 50 for a single game to a A$ 7,000 12-day all-inclusive tour package (24 Dec).