Olympic football tickets back on sale

LONDON: London 2012 will put 1.4million tickets for the Olympic football tournament on sale Monday, organisers confirmed.

Re-sales of unwanted tickets were suspended in January after problems with the Ticketmaster computer system, but the technology has been worked on and can now sell up to 250,000 tickets an hour.

"We have identified some of the issues that caused us problems in January. We are confident we can cope with anything thrown at us," Ticketmaster chief executive Chris Edmonds said.

The sales window will open at 11am (10:00GMT) on Monday and close at 11pm (22:00GMT) on Sunday, May 6.

Tickets will be available for all but five matches: Great Britain men v Uruguay, the men's quarter-final and semi-final at Wembley, and the men's and women's final at Wembley.

The other 1million Olympic tickets, for non-football events, will go on sale in mid-May together with 100,000 football tickets for the high-demand games.

So far only 10,000 tickets have been sold for the very first event of the Games, the Great Britain women's football team against New Zealand and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on July 25.

Football tickets start at #20 ($32) for adults, with children under 16 able to "pay your age" and over 60s paying as little as #16 at many matches. (AFP)