At least 20 South African soccer enthusiasts who were supposed to watch the Champions League Final in the Stade de France in Paris on Wednesday night instead spent the evening at home in front of their television sets because their match tickets, worth thousands of rands, could no longer be guaranteed.
Among the unfortunate fans were avid Barcelona supporters Alastair Giles and Keith Petzer. The Durban men, who own a construction company, spent almost R24 000 each on packages from SuperSport Travel to make the trip for the final between the Spanish giants and British team Arsenal.
Petzer said he and Giles had been following Barcelona's progress in the competition hoping the team would reach the final.
"When Barcelona got through to the quarterfinals we decided that if they make it through to the finals we would go to watch the final in Paris," he said.
Petzer said they had called the SuperSport Travel office and had been told that they still had time to book.
He said when Barcelona had secured their spot in the semifinal they had been told that it would cost R21 200 per person for five nights in Paris in a four-star hotel and a match ticket.
When Barcelona made it to the final they decided to book their tickets.
"They told us the package had increased to R24 000 per person and the hotel had been downgraded to a three-star because of the late booking.
"I said I don't care where we sleep, and we paid R47 312 for two travel packages," he said.
"The final was now 10 days away and we needed to get visas to allow us to travel to France and the visa would take exactly 10 days to secure if we used a travel agency."
Petzer said they had flown his secretary to Pretoria to apply for the visas. However, she had been told that they had to apply personally for the visas.
He and Giles had then flown to Pretoria and secured visas, spending about R8 000 in the process.
"We flew back to Durban and we received our entire flight itinerary. The only thing we didn't receive were our match tickets. We were told that our tickets would be delivered to our hotel in Paris," he said.
On Monday, as the pair were preparing to leave, they called SuperSport Travel to ensure that everything was in order.
"When I called I was told that there was a problem. The hotel had been downscaled to a two-star hotel and SuperSport could no longer guarantee the tickets because their supplier could not get them.
"I flipped my lid because the lady on the phone said she could not help," said Petzer.
He later received a call from SuperSport Travel Managing Director Demetra Tsatsoulis who said she could not do anything about the problem.
SuperSport Travel agreed to reimburse the R48 000 paid for the package but the pair have lost the thousands of rands they spent on applying for their visas.
Tsatsoulis apologised on Wednesday for the cancellation of the package tours. She said concern over the legitimacy of the tickets had been the reason for the cancellation and all those who had paid for packages would be reimbursed.
"As an experienced tour operator who has conducted tours to several World Cup events, all arrangements for the package in question were done with reputable international operators," she said.
"Unfortunately, due to factors beyond our control, SuperSport Travel had to make the difficult but responsible decision to save package holders the inconvenience and costs of their match tickets being invalidated at the venue. SuperSport Travel tried to make alternative arrangements but tickets to this prestigious event were not readily available on such short notice."