WRITTEN QUESTION E-1815/98

by Jessica Larive (ELDR) to the Commission

(11 June 1998)

Subject: Inadequate European Commission reaction to World Cup 98 ticket sales

On 20 May 1998, 32 Members of the European Parliament brought summary proceedings before a French court against the French World Cup 1998 Organizing Committee (CFO) in a further attempt to ensure that football supporters other than French nationals will be able to buy tickets for the series. The European Commission, under pressure from the European Parliament, is opening infringement proceedings against the Organizing Committee. The outcome, almost certainly in the form of fines, will not however be known until some months after all World Cup matches have been played.

1. Why has the Commission been so late and slow to react when both a 1993 study by Coopers and Lybrand, commissioned by its own DG X, and the Larive report on the European Community and sport, adopted well-nigh unanimously by the European Parliament in May 1994, had already concluded that the sale of tickets to major sporting events should be fair and equitable and that it was unacceptable for the sale of tickets to be restricted to host-country nationals?

2. Why did the Commission Member Mr Van Miert state in reply to the same question at Question Time on 12 May 1998 that the study had been conducted on the instructions of DG X and that matters of competition were the responsibility of DG IV? Does this mean that the different DGs do not coordinate policy with each other and do not read each other's reports?

3. It is general knowledge that complaints were lodged with the Commission about the poor organization of ticketing arrangements for the 1990 World Cup in Italy and about ticket sales in 1991 for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. That being so, how does the European Commission account for its having been so inefficient in monitoring the sale of tickets for World Cup 98 and having left it until (too) late before taking any action?

Answer given by Mr Van Miert on behalf of the Commission

(17 July 1998)

1. The Commission considers that it has been neither slow nor late in reacting to the discriminatory behaviour of the 1998 World Cup tournament organisers. In March 1997, during preliminary discussions with the French organising committee (CFO) concerning arrangements for the sale of tickets through tour operators, the Commission made clear that arrangements requiring the general public to prove residency in France in order to purchase tickets were discriminatory and therefore unacceptable. Furthermore, when the CFO informed the Commission in January 1998 that consumers wishing to purchase tickets directly from the committee had been required to provide an address in France, action was taken promptly to bring an end to the discriminatory behaviour in question.

2. The Honourable Member can be assured that when it is appropriate to do so the Commission's services work actively with one another in their co-ordination and implementation of Commission policy. The study commissioned by DGX and prepared by Coopers & Lybrand in close cooperation with the relevant directorates-general of the Commission, to which she refers, reflects the principles followed by the Commission's directorate-general for competition on ticket sales by tour operators.

3. The Commission's investigations into ticketing arrangements for the 1990 World Cup in Italy and 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona related exclusively to ticket sales by tour operators. Similarly, discussions which took place with the Commission in 1997 also related exclusively to sales arrangements through tour operators. As such the Commission was not at the time made aware of the discriminatory sales arrangements applied by the CFO in France, in relation to the sale of tickets to the general public through outlets other than tour operators. That information was only provided by the committee in January 1998, whereupon action was taken promptly by the Commission to bring an end to the CFO's discriminatory practices.