FIFA app issue caused World Cup tickets to ‘disappear’
Thousands of fans attending the World Cup in Qatar found themselves scrambling for tickets after complications the FIFA ticketing app
One group from the United States said many of its fans were literally left stranded after the ticketing app they planned to use to enter stadiums “disappeared” from their accounts, leaving them unable to transfer tickets to individuals in time for the U.S. team’s game against Wales on Monday.
The affected fans were told to travel to the Doha Exhibition & Convention Center in the West Bay section of Doha but were met with a line of about 500 fans outside the building experiencing the same issues.
FIFA is trying to resolve the issue by printing temporary paper tickets until the app issues are resolved. This comes as strict security measures have already made entering stadiums slow going.
“Some spectators are currently experiencing an issue with accessing their tickets via the FIFA ticketing app,” FIFA said in a statement. “FIFA is working on solving the issue. In the meantime, fans who are not able to access their mobile tickets should check the email accounts they used to register with the ticketing app for further instructions.
“In case fans cannot access their email accounts, the stadium’s Ticket Resolution Point will be able to support. We thank fans for their understanding as we work to fix the issue as soon as possible.”
It’s just the latest in issues with apps connected to the World Cup. Last week, European data protection regulators warn about the risks posed by Qatar’s World Cup apps for visitors.
A German data protection commissioner said visitors should avoid two Qatari apps that visitors are being asked to download over privacy concerns.
“One of the apps collects data on whether and with which number a telephone call is made,” the German authority said. “The other app actively prevents the device on which it is installed from going into sleep mode. It is also obvious that the data used by the apps not only remain locally on the device but are also transmitted to a central server.”
