Hundreds of football fans visited the 2018 World Cup ticket office in Moscow when direct sales launched on Tuesday.
About 400 people lined up to enter the ticket office before it opened at 2 p.m. local time, TASS news agency reported. About half had arrived before 9 a.m. to reserve a place in line.
Tickets were previously only available via the FIFA website, with almost 2 million tickets having been purchased though this channel. Although ticket offices opened in Russia's 11 host cities on April 18, they were only able to print tickets that had been already purchased online.
While many fans walked away having successfully purchased tickets, there were also complaints about the limited availability.
As tickets for sale at the ticket offices correspond with those listed on the FIFA website, there are no additional tickets available if one shows up in person.
As of Tuesday morning, the only tickets available were the most expensive — Category 1 — for matches in Volgograd and the match between Panama and Tunisia in Saransk.
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