By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Fans who bought tickets when the Greek national team had already secured the top spot of Group C but before the official schedule of Sunday’s games was announced are the victims of a cruel surprise.
While their tickets clearly state that they are for the C1+D4 and D2+C3 games, meaning for the first and third teams of Group C and the second and fourth of Group D, they were informed that those tickets are valid for the two early games of Sunday, because the ticket also has printed on it a 12.00 CET hour of the first game.
As you can see in this ticket, bought on the 6th of September, before the announcement of the official Sunday schedule, but when Greece was already locked on the top spot of Group C, while it clearly states that the session has to do with the C1+D4 game, the 12.00 CET hour is also printed on it.
At this point, there’s no clear answer from the ticketing company about this mixup and why fans who bought tickets to see Greece, are practically forced to watch Ukraine – Poland, and Finland – Croatia and then pay again to see the Greek national team playing in the second zone of games at 20.45.
The result is that at the moment many tickets for the morning final zone are being resold online by disappointed Greek fans.
A skeptic could simply say that the Germans organizers are taking advantage of the popularity of the Greek national team and Giannis Antetokounmpo, knowing that it would be very difficult to have a full stadium in the morning, and are forcing the Greeks to pay twice for a ticket on Sunday, in order to see the match that they really care about.
So far in all communication attempts that have been made with the ticket management company to solve the issue, there has been no substantial answer as to the reason for this confusion.
UPDATE: Just a few hours before Sunday’s game it was confirmed that it’s now permitted to void the transaction, return the tickets in question and get a full refund.