London 2012: No entry for fans who booked seats online

THOUSANDS of people who thought they had secured London 2012 Olympics tickets in the second round of sales have now been told they will not receive them.

About 15,000 fans presumed their application had been successful when they were able to book seats online after they went on sale on Friday.

However, they were left disappointed after it emerged that even though the website indicated tickets were available - they had in fact all been sold.

It appears that due to such high demand when the online booking opened at 6am on Friday morning, operators were not able to update the website quickly enough.

Some 2.3 million tickets went on sale online on Friday for ten days on a first-come, first-served basis.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) said almost 90 per cent of those who applied on Friday purchased some tickets.

Those who lost out fell foul of the way the Ticketmaster system was updated during the second-round process.

The original online ticket system was designed for the ballot arrangement used for the first-round sale of tickets where live updating was not needed.

On a first-come, first-served basis, where tickets to events are withdrawn from sale as they sell out, the organisers had to rely on manual updating by a team of operatives.

It is thought the operators were not able to keep up with the speed of tickets sales.

A London 2012 spokeswoman said: "Over 150,000 applications have been processed since Friday for around 850,000 tickets. Just under 90 per cent received tickets, subject to payment. Around 10 per cent have not been successful due to the massive demand during the first two hours of sales where 10 sports sold out, some within 15 minutes.

"E-mails are being sent to applicants, and whilst more applicants now have tickets to the Games, we know that there are still some disappointed customers and we will do everything we can to get them to the Games."

Organisers were drawn into further controversy yesterday after it emerged that about 150,000 tickets marketed to Britain were snapped up by other European Union residents.

Sports fans in EU countries obtained almost 5 per cent of the three million tickets which went on sale in the first round ballot, Locog confirmed.

EU law means they were free to apply for the tickets, despite being allocated their own batch of seats.

Tory MP Priti Patel said: "British taxpayers and Londoners who have paid through their taxes to fund the Games will be alarmed and hugely disappointed to see they were not given priority on tickets when they went on sale. The system is a farce."

A Locog spokeswoman said: "Over 95 per cent of the tickets sold in the first round went to the British public.

"Lots of Britons have been trying to buy tickets through agents in Europe, so it works both ways."