The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee on Friday evening decided to print an additional 2 million mail-in application forms for 2002 World Cup tickets to meet the demands of fans in Japan.
JAWOC distributed 3 million forms Thursday and will provide another 3 million starting next Tuesday, according to their original plans.
But the Japanese Organizing Committee decided to add a further 2 million after receiving more than 3,400 phone calls asking about ticket sales Friday, 30 percent of which inquired if JAWOC would print more application forms after the callers had failed to obtain forms.
The additional 2 million forms will be available at post offices across Japan on March 5.
On Thursday morning, people lined up outside post offices and World Cup official shops around the nation to obtain the mail-in ticket application forms.
But some post offices in Tokyo ran out of the forms within hours. One small post office in an office building in Yurakucho, Chiyoda Ward, for example, had 100 forms ready for the day but quickly ran out of them after dozens of people lined up outside the building before the post office opened at 9 a.m.
JAWOC received 3,682 phone calls asking about ticket applications on Thursday.
JAWOC, meanwhile, conducted a test on its Internet site with its servers in Europe on Friday in an attempt to start accepting ticket applications thought the Internet soon. But the test was a failure after 30 minutes, a JAWOC press officer said Friday. JAWOC and FIFA had planned to launch the Internet service Thursday but postponed it after finding some technical problems with the servers, caused by a computer company hired by FIFA's marketing company ISL.
JAWOC said FIFA informed the Japanese Organizing Committee on Friday that the Internet service is expected to start Monday. But JAWOC said it looks at the situation rather pessimistically.