SOUTH AFRICA – Corporate guests failing to take up their seats at the FIFA World Cup 2010 matches in South Africa are not responsible for the swathes of empty seats seen at matches in the first week of the tournament, says head of sport at international corporate hospitality and events group, Proske, Andreja Wieser.
Only five of the first 11 games of the tournament have been played in front of capacity crowds and FIFA has blamed, in part, corporate clients for not using the tickets they have been given.
Wieser disagrees, saying: “You don’t, as a corporate guest, not show up”.
Wieser, who has worked on major events, including the Olympic Games, blames the “logistics” involved for corporate guests from Europe to travel to South Africa for the fact that many corporate tickets were not sold. These tickets were then handed back to organisers, but were “too expensive” for most local people, she believes.
“Games like Algeria-Slovenia or New Zealand-Slovakia,” says Wieser, “are not games that local people will go and watch”.
”Many corporate clients in Europe were unwilling or unable to take a week off work to travel to South Africa “just to enjoy themselves,” says Weiser, contrasting this with the 2006 World Cup in Germany, for which Proske was involved in corporate hospitality sales.
Wieser insists that the problem of empty seats is more pronounced in South Africa than was the case in Germany in 2006, where corporate guests could, in many cases, fly to and from the games on the same day.
The growth of ‘fan parks’ and live big screen coverage of matches in stadia such as Munich’s Allianz Arena since 2006 has meant that companies can now offer tickets and corporate hospitality for the World Cup without the need to fly guests to the tournament.
Wieser notes clients can still get dressed in their team’s shirts and scarves and experience a good atmosphere. “They can still do business, but people will not say they are over-spending,” she notes.
Proske acquired a small number of tickets on behalf of corporate clients, but reduced its involvement in comparison with the 2006 World Cup. “The recession didn’t help,” says Wieser. “Our strategy was not to buy accommodation [in South Africa], because we felt it would be a hard sell. It’s a difficult situation.”
She predicts a similar situation in Brazil [host of the 2014 World Cup} although Wieser advocates FIFA putting more tickets into the public pool from the beginning.
Proske would welcome the 2018 World Cup being held in England, says Wieser, because of the ease of transporting corporate clients to games. England is competing against Russia, Spain-Portugal, Netherlands-Belgium and the US for the right to host the 2018 World Cup.
