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Ich suche karten
June 13th, 2006
After last night’s celebration, I woke up later than normal this morning. It’s a few days until Australia plays Brazil and while the players now need to focus on that match, the Aussie fans can continue to enjoy the win over Japan.
My mind can’t stop replaying that amazing eight minutes in which the Socceroos turned a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead. It really is impossible to describe what those few minutes were like in the group of Aussie fans I was sitting with and I’m not going to try. What was it like in Australia’s large body of supporters behind one of the corner flags?
Today South Korea played Togo in Frankfurt, where I’m staying. I did not have a ticket for the game but I decided to try my luck with touts (or scalpers, as we’d call them in Australia).
At yesterday’s Australia-Japan match, there were touts everywhere. One was trying to sell a ticket on the train I caught for 1000 euros – that’s ten times the face value of a category 1 ticket. The head coach of the amateur club I play for in Adelaide was in Kaiserslautern and, while he has tickets to Australia v Brazil and Australia v Croatia, he didn’t have one for Australia v Japan. He bought a category 3 ticket (with a face value of 45 euros) from a tout for 150 euros. I told him that it was a good deal and events that transpired today confirmed that. (And, hey, he ended up seeing the greatest eight minutes in Australian football history. Can you put a price on that?)
Touts behave a little bit like I’d expect drug dealers to behave – deals are not normally done out in the open. The only difference is that people that want to buy tickets are holding up signs saying “I need tickets” and/or “Ich suche karten”. I can’t imagine that drug addicts hold up signs that say “Ich suche kokain”.
I first tried to get a ticket at Frankfurt’s main train station but there seemed to be no trading going on there. That was surprising as I’ve seen a few transactions taking place at stations.
After a bit of snooping around, I boarded the tram for Frankfurt’s stadium. It’s just two stops away so it only takes a few minutes to get there.
As I walked with the crowds on the long road between the station and the stadium, it became obvious that there were rather more people trying to buy tickets than there were selling them. I looked for touts in the trees that lined the road (don’t laugh, that’s often the kind of place you’ll find them operating in) but all I found was people trying to relieve themselves discreetly (you can laugh now).
When I reached a set of entrance gates, I was ready to turn back but, remarkably, a deal was being done just outside them. Two young Koreans with four tickets were trying to sell the two category 3 tickets that they didn’t need for 120 euros each (a bargain). It was also the safest deal imaginable as the group of four tickets were all together – the buyers of the two spare tickets would enter the stadium with the two Koreans and sit with them.
Two prospective buyers were trying to talk the Koreans down to 100 euros for each ticket. I quietly told one of the Koreans that I’d buy one for 120 euros but he said that he would rather sell both together and if these other two chaps agreed to 120 euros each, that was that. In the end, that’s what happened and I missed out.
Before the tournament started, there was speculation about whether people would have their passports checked to ensure that they were the legitimate holders of their tickets (as when you are sent tickets by FIFA, they have your name printed on them). This hasn’t happened and that’s a relief – it would have just caused massive lines outside stadiums and a lot of arguments. Besides, some tickets are not in the names of individuals. They might instead have Football Federation Australia, or something like that, printed on them.
The lack of identification checking is, however, a boon for touts and for people prepared to buy from them.
I tried my luck on the road between the stadium and the station again and found a seller. He had all the features that you’d expect in a tout: big dark sunglasses; a face that looked like it last wore a smile in 1983; and that repetitive, robotic “it’s not possible” answer when you suggest a price lower than the ridiculous one he’s charging.
This guy, let’s call him X, was selling a single ticket for 300 euros. With less than half an hour to kick off, I told him he wouldn’t get it. About a dozen people that wanted tickets would not buy from him at that price but he would not negotiate.
Suddenly another shady character popped up. Let’s call him Y. He was prepared to sell for 250 euros and said that he couldn’t sell for less because X was charging 300 (work that out).
I told Y that I’d happily pay him half – 125 euros – but he then told me that his English wasn’t good. I walked away.
After X and Y were knocked back by a few other people, Y ran over to me and (suddenly in perfect English) told me that he would sell at the special price of 200 euros “just for you (me)”.
I can’t repeat what I said back to him. It’s not printable here. I rather enjoyed watching Y recoil in horror when he heard it.
I wasn’t prepared to pay 200 euros for this particular match and, in any event, I didn’t have that much cash on me anyway.
With ten minutes to kick off, and X and Y still trying to convince the fans wanting to buy tickets that their prices were not negotiable, I conceded defeat and caught the tram back to the main station. It’s such a short ride that I’d only missed the first seven or eight minutes of the match by the time I’d settled in a café to watch it.
It was a good game and I’m disappointed that I couldn’t be there – especially as I’m staying in Frankfurt and none of my World Cup tickets are for matches here.
Now I haven’t said much about Frankfurt since arriving a couple of days ago but tonight, for the first time, I saw a bit more than the 200 metres between my hotel and the main train station.
That’s because I decided to go to the Fan Park for the Brazil-Croatia game this evening and it’s a good 30 minute walk from my hotel.
Frankfurt is a big city and I like the way it has developed. It has nice historic areas and some tall modern buildings but they don’t clash with each other. I’m going to be based here for another 12 days and I will eventually do one or two tours of the city so I’ll be able to tell you much more about it.
But first I have to do more travelling. Tomorrow I will be at Tunisia v Saudi Arabia in Munich and that’s a four hour train ride from Frankfurt.
It will be a long haul but at least I won’t have to make a sign saying “Ich suche karten”.
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