Asian Games: Stadiums Will Be Full, Insists OCA Chief
The 17th Asian Games, which have cost nearly $2 billion and will feature 13,000 athletes, coaches and officials, officially opens on Friday but thousands of tickets have yet to be sold.
- Agence France-Presse
- Updated: September 19, 2014 10:38 PM IST
Asia's Olympic chief said Friday he was confident stadiums would be full at the Asian Games in Incheon despite poor ticket sales.
The 17th Asian Games, which have cost nearly $2 billion and will feature 13,000 athletes, coaches and officials, officially opens later Friday but thousands of tickets have yet to be sold.
Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), insisted that once South Korea started winning medals at the two-week-long multi-sports event, Koreans would flock to the venues.
He suggested that locals had been too distracted recently by a mayoral election in Incheon, economic worries, and the South's relations with reclusive North Korea to take an interest in sport.
"For those reasons most of the citizens were busy with something else... (and) maybe not following the games very closely," he told reporters during a break from an OCA Executive Board Meeting.
"But since two days ago the opening ceremony tickets have almost sold for a full stadium. The selling of tickets has started to be better than before."
Organisers have stopped reporting the number of tickets sold -- instead opting only to release receipts -- after earlier this week saying that barely 18 percent had been flogged to spectators.
There were fewer than 100 people in the Goyang Stadium when Jordan's football team beat United Arab Emirates, silver medallists in the Asian Games four years ago, on Thursday night.
On Friday, a spokeswoman said that overall the Games had reached 55 percent of its 35 billion won target ($335 million) target, up from 52 percent the day before.
"I believe, with our experience of the Asians emotionally, that when the first flag of Korea is raised after a gold medal and the local media will have more attention for the Games," ticket sales will improve Sheikh Ahmad said.
"I'm sure the final will be full. I am sure the main sports will be full," the top Olympic official added.