The excess of emotion for traveling to a Soccer World Cup can lead to overconfidence in travel agencies that put together packages that even include tickets to enter the stadiums. Eight months before Qatar 2022, Mexican fans are warned about fraud, how they can detect false information and what is the correct process to buy tickets to one of the eight World Cup stadiums.
Among the abysmal differences in the numbers expected from Mexicans in Qatar, Martha Delgado, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights estimates some 80,000 fans, who will be able to find out from the Foreign Ministry’s web pages and probably in an app “how to Acquiring tickets, reservations and not being subject to fraud is the first thing the community should know. FIFA has exclusive ticket sellers. Fraud and the loss of documents are some of the most recurrent complaints received from Mexicans in a World Cup”, she mentions to El Economista.
At least 15 companies were identified in early April by the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (PROFECO) and highlighted the only way in which a consumer can make a safe purchase.
“They can only be purchased by end users and through the following authorized channels: Directly on FIFA.com and with MATCH Hospitality and/or its authorized agents (Zest Events), Lusso Travel and Mundomex”.
Match Hospitality, an international company authorized to sell accommodation and tickets to the World Cups, has a history in Mexico since the 1986 edition, has an office in our country and from Doha observes the behavior of the fans who will follow the Mexican National Team. José Luis Font, Director of Corporate Relations, with four World Cups of experience at the helm of Match, points out that he estimates there will be about 40,000 tricolor fans who will travel to Qatar 2022.
”It will be the fourth consecutive World Cup that our greatest number of clients are Mexicans, not counting those who come from the United States to support the National Team. When we launched the sale on February 1 there was a lot of buying interest, especially from Mexico, people want to plan their trip to the World Cup well in advance. We saw some impressive numbers of demand, it has always been in the first places. That told us a lot about people’s desire to return to normality and to plan sporting events,” José Luis Font responds to this newspaper.
The summer is yet to pass, autumn, to reach the Arab World Cup winter, and so far, Match Hospitality records that Mexico represents 10% of the total sales of the international market (excluding Qatar).
“In 2003, I had a position in PROFECO’s consumer protection strategy and cycle after World Cup cycle we tried to carry out preventive campaigns and follow the correct processes, to carry out the Hospitality program. There are companies with intent, with modus operandi and others that do it out of ignorance, they believe that it is as easy as traveling at a normal time of year. Many of these companies manage to back down.”
In the first phase of ticket sales for Qatar 2022, FIFA received more than 1.2 million requests from around the world in a 24-hour period, and Mexico appeared in third place out of a Top 10 country that requested the most tickets. only behind the headquarters itself, Qatar, and Argentina.