Fans urged to arrive early for soccer sell-out
3rd August 2012, 9:44 pm By Principality Stadium
London 2012 organisers at the Millennium Stadium have renewed calls for fans to get to Cardiff early tomorrow ahead of the 70,000 plus, sold-out, men’s quarter-final clash between Great Britain and Republic of Korea.
A late rush for the final few tickets available has meant up to 3,000 fans are scheduled to collect paid-for tickets on the day.
The biggest game of the Millennium Stadium’s Olympic calendar to date, as the men’s competition enters its knock-out stages, kicks off at 7.30pm on Saturday 4th August.
That should leave plenty of time for fans to be processed before kick-off, but it is all important to arrive as long as possible before Colombian referee Wilmar Roldan blows his whistle to start the match.
A dedicated ticket office at the Millennium Stadium’s gate 3 (Westgate street, on the East side of the ground) will be open from 9am in the morning, so fans are being urged to make sure they have their ticket in their pocket early in the day, so they can begin to enjoy Cardiff’s carnival match-day experience from the outset.
“We have plenty of time to process the amount of people we are expecting, but it is important that fans get the message to arrive early at the ticket office so they can get on with enjoying another great day’s football,” said LOCOG Venue General Manager for the Millennium Stadium Peter Withers.
“The office on Westgate Street will be open from 9am and will be dedicated to ticket collections only.
“We are extremely pleased to be able to put up the sold-out signs for the second time in our eight match event calendar, meaning we will not be using this ticket office for match-day sales.
“Fans should visit the box office on a one-person-per-party basis and bring photo ID and the VISA card on which they booked the tickets wherever possible.”
A second ticket office will be open at the Cardiff Blues ground (North/Castle end of Westgate Street) which will handle other ticket resolution issues such as upgrades of tickets and will also be selling the remaining tickets available for the Bronze Medal play-off match on Friday 10th August.
Today’s (Friday 3rd August) women’s quarter-final match at the Millennium Stadium (kick-off 5pm) between Japan and Brazil will be the second in Olympic history (the first being Japan v South Africa women at the same venue last week) to be played indoors after it was decided this morning to close the Cardiff ground’s iconic retractable roof due to weather conditions.
“A decision on whether or not to close the roof for the men’s quarter-final match tomorrow will be taken in the morning and largely depend on weather conditions,” added Mr Withers.