© EuroFootball.com
Tickets to the 2008 European Championship matches in Austria and Switzerland will be distributed by lottery, as it turned out that there are 30 times more people interested in buying them than there are seats in the stadiums.
There have been requests to buy more than 10.3 million tickets for the matches, even though it is not yet known which national teams will be playing. This demand is even 18 times greater than in the 2004 tournament in Portugal and almost matches last year's World Cup.
According to the organizers, 588 thousand people from 142 countries expressed interest in reserving seats and the number of spectators at all matches exceeded the capacity of the arenas.
Altogether, 346 thousand tickets for all 31 matches were released for sale online for a month.
The lottery will take place in mid-April, with officials present. Until then, all requests will be thoroughly checked to avoid incorrect payments or people who are listed in football hooligans databases.
The last opportunity to buy tickets will be at the beginning of next year, when 399 thousand tickets will be sold through the football federations of the countries participating in the tournament.
It is worth noting that almost 29 percent of those wishing to enter the stadium are Swiss, 27 percent are Germans, and 21 percent are Austrians.
Meanwhile, fans of Germany, England, and the Netherlands were the most active in the sales, where it is possible to book seats for the matches of their desired national team.
