PASADENA : City Drafting New Plan to Sell World Cup Tickets

Now that World Cup officials have squelched one Pasadena plan to fund economic development through soccer ticket sales, city officials are drafting another plan.

The City Council on Monday is to consider a plan to sell the coveted tickets to out-of-town business people who might be persuaded to set up shop in Pasadena, said Assistant City Manager Edmund F. Sotelo.

Pasadena secured the right to sell 9,000 World Cup tickets at face value as part of an agreement to stage eight World Cup matches, including the final, at the Rose Bowl. The prices of those tickets range from $25 to $475.

The council had earmarked 1,000 of those tickets for sale by the Chamber of Commerce, which planned to sell tiles, bearing the name of the purchasers, to be set in a plaza in front of the Rose Bowl. The purchasers of $1,000 tiles would have been entitled to buy a World Cup ticket at face value.

But World Cup officials recently rejected that plan.

“It’s the organizing committee’s policy on all of our tickets that they are not to be resold (to generate a profit),” said World Cup spokesman John Griffin.

The city already had set aside 558 additional tickets to sell to out-of-town business people to promote the city, and the 1,000 tickets that were to be sold by the chamber probably will be included in the plan, he said.