Blair Bids to Help World Cup Ticket Scam Children

A British government department on Tuesday played down Prime Minister Tony Blair's offer to help 350 schoolchildren who missed out on watching a World Cup game due to an alleged ticket scam. Blair pledged Monday that getting the heartbroken British pupils back to Germany to watch another match was "something we need to work on to make sure they can get out there."

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) warned that it would be very difficult to get their hands on so many tickets at this stage. Blair had told BBC radio: "I think the Sports Minister Richard Caborn is trying to sort something out." Although there was usually a very strict boundary between sports and government, "we will try to do what we can to help," Blair said.

But a DCMS spokeswoman said that while they would try their hardest to get the children into a World Cup game, it did not want to get their hopes up only for them to be dashed. "It will be very difficult to find 400 tickets," she said. "We are going to try to do our best. Richard will obviously try to find a solution."

Just hours before the youngsters, aged 11 to 16, were due to watch the Czech Republic versus Ghana game in Cologne on Saturday, their tour operators discovered the alleged ticket con by their ticket providers. The children were then told to travel to Frankfurt for the Portugal-Iran game, but before they departed they were told there were no tickets for this match either.