'Ridiculous' Wembley queues after problems with tills
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Spectators attending Olympic football games at Wembley Stadium complained of “ridiculous” queues for food and drink after some tills stopped working.
Fans hoping to buy snacks as they watched Great Britain's men take on United Arab Emirates last night were told they could not pay by Visa, the only credit or debit card accepted at London 2012 venues, and must use cash.
Max Gore, 27, from Shepherd's Bush, west London, said: "The queues were ridiculous. I didn't have any cash and I couldn't pay on card.
"I asked the person behind the bar if there were any cash machines and they said some had been taken out for the Olympics.
"I had to trek around the stadium to find one."
Mr Gore added: "The problem went on for the whole evening. There were two games and they couldn't get it fixed."
Other disgruntled spectators took to Twitter to vent their anger.
Carl McQueen wrote on the micro blogging website: "80,000 people in Wembley Stadium, and the Visa card payment system has broken down - lot of people without cash going hungry & thirsty!"
Nick Bacon tweeted: "Was very unimpressed by Wembley Stadium. Ran out of food, couldn't use cards at the tills and lack of information given to punters."
Twitter user Sue Atkins described the payment problems as a "fiasco", while Tom Williams tweeted: "Quite something for Visa to have a monopoly only for none of their card machines to work."
Thousands of fans attended the stadium to watch Senegal play Uruguay before Great Britain's match yesterday evening.
A Visa spokesman said the decision to accept cash payments only was made by Wembley management and that employees were working with the stadium to try and fix the problem.
Games organiser Locog also said it was helping to resolve the situation.
A spokesman said last night: "We are working with the Wembley team to fix this as soon as possible."
The Great Britain women's football team will take on Brazil at Wembley tomorrow, but it is not yet known when the glitch will be rectified.
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