LONDON 2012: Majority of remaining Olympic tickets for football or expensive

PRESSURE on the British Olympic Association and the four home Football Associations to resolve issues surrounding a hosts' team at next year's Olympics were underlined by news from London 2012's under-fire ticket office.

AVAILABLE: Of the 2.3 million tickets still available for the Olympics, 1.7m are for football matches with only the final sold-out (Getty Images)

Of the 2.3 million tickets that remain for Olympic events, 1.7 million of these are for the football competition, which will be staged in Cardiff, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle, in addition to London's Wembley Stadium.

That means it's more important than ever that a fully-representative British team is involved, despite the long-stated and understandable reasons for the opposition of the national governing bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The only football match to have sold out is the men's final at Wembley Stadium while there is good availability for all other 57 games - which will staged across 42 sessions, with some double-headers at preliminary stages.

Indeed the only price points to have sold out are the cheaper tickets for the men's quarter-final and semi-final at Wembley and lower priced seats for a couple of preliminary matches, again at Wembley but also at Coventry's Ricoh Arena.

Of course, Lord Coe and his chief executive Paul Deighton, plus their embattled ticketing team, know that Olympic football was always going to be one of the hardest tickets to shift.

There were around 700,000 successful applications for 3 million tickets in the first round meaning more than 2.5 million people have tickets to the Games from the first round of sales.  Successful applicants were, on average, allocated between 4 and 5 tickets, totalling around £275." London 2012 press release

Regulations state that stadiums must be a minimum size of 30,000 and it's pretty hard to sell seats when the qualifying teams, the ongoing UEFA under-21 championship in Denmark will secure the positions of three European men's sides, are not known and the draw has not been made.

But football - and the torch relay - remains Locog's major strategy to take the Olympics outside the confines of the capital and hit back at suggestions that this is a London event.

The lukewarm response in Cardiff and Glasgow - not assisted by the current uncertainty over the make-up of the team - will therefore be a concern.

After news that only 700,000 of the 1.9 million applicants for tickets in the first round were successful - Coe has been stressing that hundreds of thousands of seats are still unavailable.

However, for the most popular events - those considered traditional Olympic sports, as opposed to football, whose relationship with the Games has long been disputed, prices are eye-wateringly high, with almost all the lower priced tickets sold out.

The cheapest available seat for athletics is in the £150 price category for a handful of morning sessions, to witness the opening evening session, which only actually features the men's shot final, would set you back a minimum £295.

There is limited availability for what promises to be an exciting night of sprint relay finals on August 10th - but that will cost you £725 plus your £6 booking charge.

Remaining basketball tickets cost a minimum of £75, there is limited beach volleyball availability for £55 and some tickets remaining for boxing finals, ranging between £185 and £275.

Swimming, diving and water polo are total sell-outs but what about synchro swimming? Don't titter it's actually rather good to watch live, with tickets starting at £50.

Despite the Wimbledon Championships being staged just a few weeks before the Games, the tennis tournament is also totally sold-out - unheard of in recent Olympic history - but there are some £35 tickets for the table tennis, or ping pong, or whiff-whaff - call it what you will.

However, there are some bargains out there - with good availability for the latter stages of the handball - one of the most exciting sports on the schedule - and plenty of tickets for hockey, in which both Great Britain teams will start as realistic medal contenders, and volleyball.

And if you like to see people throwing their weight around - or just throwing weights around - there remains a good range of prices for both weightlifting and wrestling.

Otherwise, the choices are thin on the ground - or expensive on the wallet.

© Sportsbeat 2011

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