Bonanza that turned sour

Press, 16 July 1982, Page 26

Bonanza that turned sour

NZPA staff correspondent London

The three New Zealanders who run Sportsworld Travel, the London-based company which cornered the British ticket market for the World Cup, are reflecting upon a bonanza which turned rather sour.

The trio, Geoffrey Phillips from Wellington and Simon Nutt and Michael Norris, of Christchurch, appeared to have pulled off an astounding coup late last year when they gained the exclusive right to cater for 16,000 British fans in Spain. A turnover of SNZI6 million was predicted for the

fledgling company from the sale of World Cup tickets, travel and accommodation; However, Mr Nutt said yesterday that the greed of the Spanish ticket organisation, Mundiespana, meant his company now expected to show only “a modest profit” for its enterprise.

“We spent many months trying to get Mundiespana to try to lower their prices but they were not prepared to compromise. In the end we sold only near to 11,000 of the allocation for 16,000 people we had received because of their prices,” he said..

Mr Nutt said, his-company had also found itself having

to foot the bill for services which had been promised by the Spaniards; “We paid for buses which never turned up and then had to pay for taxis so our customers could get to matches,” he said. Tales of fans being dumped in over-crowded and dirty hotels or discovering they had no accommodation at all became commonplace in Spain as did stories of Ble on five-star packages) ug themselves with standing tickets for games and Mr Nutt ’ said Sportsworld Travel had had to bring in extra staff to sort put the myriad of problems. “There was massive, fraud all along the line and the

average fan suffered. We found the signs of corruption all around us and could only get a reaction out of the Spaniards if we showed pesetas,” said Mr Nutt. “We tried to cover up for their incompetence and I believe we managed to keep our customers satisfied at the end of the day.” Sportsworld Travel’s complaints about Mundiespana have already been echoed by F.1.F.A., soccer’s governing body, which has pledged that a similar situation will not be allowed to occur during the 1986 World Cup. Mr Nutt said that although the World Cup experience had been disillusioning in

many respects, it had been important that his company’s customers had been cared for and his company’s name wasstill intact. ‘ ;

“Well obviously make a lot less now than we thought and expect to show only a modest profit, but we have at least established our presence in sport,” he said.

Mr Nutt said that Sportsworld Travel had already received inquiries about whether it could arrange* package deals 'for race-goers who wanted to follow major classics round the world and there bad also been interest in packages to next year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament