NEW DELHI - Ten million fans seeking just 1,000 tickets for the final crashed a World Cup website in just 20 minutes, the official ticket agency said on Wednesday.

Tournament organizers were forced to scrap plans to sell the tickets on the web after the meltdown and organize a ballot system instead.

Monday's problems launched a huge online backlash by fans seeking the precious tickets for the April 2 final in Mumbai but the KyaZoonga agency said the demand had taken everyone by surprise.

"There was a limited supply of tickets and the demand was unprecedented. The website got completely overloaded," KyaZoonga Chief Executive Officer Neetu Bhatia said.

"To give you a perspective, Facebook gets 14 million visits a day and we got 10 million in the first 20 minutes. They just kept coming.

"While we were prepared obviously for a surge, everyone tried to hit at the same time because we had given them a time. Any system has a certain capacity and no matter how much you expand, if traffic keeps coming, systems get overloaded."

Of the 33,000 seats at the Wankhede Stadium for the final, only about 4,000 are available to the public while the rest are distributed among the International Cricket Council and clubs affiliated to the Mumbai Cricket Association.

Reuters

(China Daily 02/25/2011 page23)