He refused to elaborate. Rumors started last week that some tickets for Dutch games could still be bought at high prices from people linked to the federation. Cutting down on scalping has been one of the main priorities of the Euro 2000 organizers and since the tournament opened on June 10 several hundreds of people have been detained or arrested for black market sales in co-hosts Belgium and the Netherlands. The Dutch federation was given in between 16 and 20 percent of tickets for games involving Oranje. It comes down to 8,000 to 10,000 tickets a game and, so far in the tournament 40,000 to 50,000 tickets in the tournament.
All Dutch games are sellouts and ticket demand is incredible.
About two-thirds of the Dutch population of 15 million is watching the games on television. The Netherlands plays Italy in Thursday's semifinal. The final is set for Sunday. As a security precaution though, subway lines were checked again but traffic to the 50,000-capacity stadium was not interrupted. The semifinal was the last Euro 2000 game to be played in Belgium.