Football: World Cup - In France Without A Ticket

Nicholas Harling's daily quest to see a World Cup match: Day 15

The appeal of Stoichkov means that Bulgaria are a long way from being the least attractive team in the World Cup. Yet their games are easily the cheapest to attend as east Europeans are obviously still some way short of the funds required to travel abroad for football in vast numbers. I should therefore have known better yesterday than to purchase a 350 franc ticket for 455fr outside Lens station 70 minutes before the kick- off. Along the approaches to the Stade Felix Bollaert touts were needing little persuasion to drop their prices from the average 800fr original asking price to well below cost price. One English chap with a handful of 1,000fr executive box tickets was even selling them at half-price.

Total games: 15. Total cost price: 5,735fr. Total price paid: 5,910fr. Two failures to get in.