Later this month a Paris court will hear an independent action brought by British Labour MEPs against French authorities concerning arrangements for the distribution of World Cup tickets. The French have admitted the case, which contests the restrictions on most of the sales to France, in contravention of EU competition rules. In a separate move, Competition Policy Commissioner Karel Van Miert is also proceeding with a legal action against the French authorities, but this is unlikely to be resolved before the World Cup.
MEPs this month were angry that it has not resulted in the distribution of many more tickets outside France. Mr Van Miert did say that 110,000 tickets were made available after the Commission's first protest and that a further 6,000 were due to go on sale outside France through national football authorities.
He did not want to be drawn into the dispute over the hotline for obtaining spare tickets, despite complaints from Graham Watson (UK, ELDR) that present arrangements in effect excluded fans from the UK. Mr Van Miert did say, however, that talks were already taking place with the Belgian and Dutch authorities to ensure that there will be a much fairer distribution of tickets for the European Championships to be held in the Netherlands and Belgium in the year 2000.