Declined 2012 Payments Mean Tickets will be Reallocated

London 2012 Organisers (LOCOG) have revealed that thousands of people who were allocated London 2012 tickets have had their cards declined, meaning those tickets have now been allocated to others and the new recipients will have the money debited by the end of Friday.

A second phase of ticket sales takes place on June 24 and up to a million more will be released next year when venue capacities are confirmed, though these will only be offered to those who missed out the first time around.

In an interview with BBC Breakfast, LOCOG Chairman Lord Coe defended the Olympics ticketing process, saying people should not be “coy or naive” about the funding provided by businesses.

There has been indignation over tour operators, including Thomas Cook, that are now offering Olympics packages with tickets at significantly higher prices.

Coe said: “The corporates are responsible for about 8% of the tickets, the high-end ticket packages are actually only 1% of tickets.

“The corporates in large part pay for the Games, we shouldn’t be coy or naive about that. Twenty five per cent of the operating budget for the staging of the Games comes from ticket sales, and the corporates are probably collectively contributing about £1.5bn to what we’re actually doing.”