The World Hockey Championship starts in two weeks, tickets for all Czech hockey players’ matches in the group have long been sold out. The organizers only occasionally release a few tickets for sale. And they warn against buying second hand.
“It is necessary to buy them through official channels, which are the official website of the World Cup, or our sales partners, which are TicketPortal and TicketMaster. No other partners sell tickets,” says spokesman Miloš Židík for the organizing committee.
Invalid or false
Nevertheless, it is possible to find ticket offers for matches of the Czech national team on the Internet. But only from resellers and usually at a much higher price than the one set by the organizers.
The attractive duel between the Czech Republic and Finland, for example, is offered by the Viagogo server at a price ranging from 5,232 to 7,615 crowns for one ticket. According to the official price list, tickets should cost from 2,390 to 3,290 crowns. For some matches, the price from traffickers climbs up to tens of thousands of crowns. And it’s not even a guarantee that the ticket holder will get to the stadium.
“We do not recommend buying second-hand at bazaars. It may happen that the tickets will not be valid or will be fake,” warns Židík.
The company Viagogo was fined by the Czech Trade Inspection in the past and is repeatedly warned against by the consumer consultancy of dTest magazine. The server resells tickets for various cultural and sporting events at significantly higher prices than the organizers and their partners sell them for.
Seznam The News asked Viagogo for a comment, but a reply was not received by the time the article was published.
The Switzerland-based company officially says that it only mediates contact between people who bought a ticket for a particular social event, but decided not to attend, and those who want to buy a ticket from them.
However, customers run the risk of buying an invalid ticket. Some sellers repeatedly offer the ticket in electronic form to multiple customers. Only the first to arrive will get to the stadium. Or it may be a ticket invalid for other reasons.
Everyone has to solve the invalid ticket themselves
Some banks, such as Fio banka, UniCredit Bank or Air Bank, even protect their clients by not allowing payments in favor of Viagogo. The server iRozhlas reported about it in mid-April.
Also, some organizers of social events are actively opposing the resale of tickets by Viagogo. They will invalidate the ticket, so the fan will not be able to enter the stadium with it. However, he can immediately buy a ticket for the same place at the box office in front of the stadium at the original, usually significantly lower, price. In addition, he receives a confirmation of the invalid ticket from the reseller and can subsequently claim the money from Viagogo. This procedure is promoted, for example, by the football club Bayern Munich.
However, the Czech team of organizers of the WC in hockey does not offer a similar service. According to Židík, if a fan with an invalid ticket does not get to the stadium, he must solve the problem himself.
“We won’t do anything about it. It is possible to deal with it only with the police, one has to recover it himself from whom he bought it from, which can be very difficult. Practically almost unrealistic if they buy it anonymously from some bazaar,” warns Židík.
Connor Bedard for 890 crowns
From time to time, additional tickets will be released from official sellers, for example when someone cancels a reservation. According to the organizers, however, these tickets usually disappear immediately due to the great interest of fans.
Nevertheless, it is still possible to buy tickets for the biggest stars of world hockey, even through the official way. Tickets for the play-off games are still on sale, of course with no guarantee of which teams will perform in this part of the tournament. Or it is possible to buy tickets for matches in the regular season, but without the participation of the Czech national team.
“There are still very good matches. For example, to Canada, which announced that Connor Bedard and other famous players would come. There are good tickets to America. You can still buy tickets for quality matches,” adds the spokesperson.
