Free tickets offered for FIFA Women’s World Cup games in New Zealand

New Zealand-based accounting firm Xero is offering some 20,000 free tickets for the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is set to kick off next week.

Xero is an official partner of FIFA for the World Cup, and is aiming to drum up support for the ‘Football Ferns’ in New Zealand with thousands of free tickets. According to a report from Reuters, the majority of the one million tickets sold for the event have been snapped up for games in Australia, which is co-hosting the tournament.

Some 5,000 tickets will be made available for free for Women’s World Cup games in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin. 

The complementary tickets will be available for the first match in each host city, apart from Auckland, where the offer is valid for the July 26 game. 

FIFA Women’s World Cup chief executive Dave Beech and Xero’s general manager of brand and operations Valerie Walshe made the announcement yesterday (Thursday). 

As reported by New Zealand news outlet Stuff, Walshe said: “We just want Kiwis to be able to experience some of these amazing athletes at this event, which is going to be the most-attended women’s sporting event in history.

“Having access to these tickets means that more people will have the chance to be inspired by these athletes and we can hopefully grow the game locally within our football clubs all around the country.”

Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. 

FIFA also said that it had sold 1.25 million tickets to games in Australia and New Zealand. 

The FIFA Women’s World Cup will begin on July 20 and run until August 20.