世界盃曝門票騙局，中國球迷損失慘重
Chinese Fans Paid Dearly for World Cup Tickets That Never Materialized
MIKE IVES
2018年6月22日
HONG KONG — Xue Qiulian has been a die-hard fan of Argentina’s national soccer team since his junior high school days in Guangzhou, a southern Chinese megacity. But his dream of seeing the team play live was always out of reach — until this year, when he could finally afford to attend the World Cup, in Russia.
香港——自從在中國南方大城市廣州上初中的時候起，薛丘聯（音）就一直是阿根廷國家足球隊的鐵桿球迷。但是，在現場觀看該球隊比賽的夢想以前總是遙不可及。今年，他終於有足夠的錢去俄羅斯觀看世界盃比賽了。
In March, when Mr. Xue, 30, tried to purchase a ticket to Argentina’s World Cup match last week against Iceland, he found that official ticket agents were all sold out. Desperate to see the match, he bought a ticket through a Beijing agency, which he had found by way of an Argentina fans’ group on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.
The catch? He paid $620, roughly four times the face value. “Just let me get to Russia to see Messi,” he recalled thinking when he made the purchase, referring to Argentina’s star striker, Lionel Messi.
這裡面有什麼名堂嗎？他花了620美元（約合3900元人民幣），大約是票面價格的四倍。“只要讓我去俄羅斯看看梅西，”他回憶起買票時是這樣想的，他指的是阿根廷球星利昂內爾·梅西(Lionel Messi)。
But Mr. Xue turned out to be one of possibly thousands of Chinese fans whose World Cup tickets never materialized. The Chinese government now says they were victims of a ticketing swindle orchestrated by a Moscow company called Anzhi, which shares a name with a Russian Premier League football club in the southern region of Dagestan.
但後來發現，可能有多達數千名中國球迷從未拿到他們買的世界盃門票，薛先生就是其中之一。中國政府現在表示，這些人是莫斯科安郅公司策劃的一場門票騙局的受害者。該公司與達吉斯坦南部的俄羅斯超級聯賽(Russian Premier League)足球俱樂部同名。
The Chinese Embassy in Moscow said in a notice last week that it had confirmed the fraud with Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the local organizing committee for the World Cup. This week, one person was arrested in connection with the case.
中國駐莫斯科大使館上週在一份通知中說，已經向俄羅斯外交部和當地世界盃組委會核實，這是一場騙局。本週，一名涉案人員已被逮捕。
The embassy did not say how many fans had been swindled. But according to a report on Friday by The Cover, a Chinese news site, three travel agencies in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing wrote to their local tourism office saying that Anzhi, the Moscow company, also known as Anzhi Msk, told them it had sold about 10,000 tickets, 3,500 of them to Chinese fans.
使館沒有透露有多少球迷被騙。但據中文新聞網站“封面新聞”報道，中國西南部城市重慶的三家旅行社寫信給當地旅遊局說，莫斯科的安郅公司(Anji Msk)告訴旅行社，公司已賣出1萬張門票，其中有3500張賣給了中國球迷。
Anzhi Msk told the Chongqing agencies, which had collectively purchased nearly half a million dollars’ worth of tickets from it, that it had intended to distribute the tickets, but that the Russian officials who had promised to provide them absconded with the ticket money, The Cover reported.
據封面新聞(The Cover)報道，這三家重慶旅行社合計銷售了約286萬元人民幣的門票，安郅公司告訴旅行社，公司原打算把票分給它們，但承諾提供門票的俄羅斯官員攜款潛逃，無法出票。
Mr. Xue, the Argentina fan, said he bought his $620 ticket from an agency in Beijing called the Russian Chinese Culture Education Development Center. He gave The New York Times a copy of a power-of-attorney agreement he said the agency had sent him, concerning Anzhi Msk’s relations with World Cup ticket buyers in China. The agreement lists Anzhi Msk’s chairwoman as Zhanna E. Bryutova.
Ms. Bryutova is also a co-founder of another Russian company, Obltransstroyresurs. Its other co-founder is Eldar A. Isaev, a former executive director of the Anzhi Football Club.
布柳多娃也是另一家俄羅斯公司Obltransstroy的聯合創始人之一。該公司的另一位聯合創始人是埃爾達爾·A·伊薩耶夫(Eldar A. Isaev)，他曾是安郅足球俱樂部的執行董事。
Last July, Mr. Isaev told Sport Connect, a Russian sports news outlet, that the club planned to engage in a joint venture with Chinese partners, and that it already had someone “mingling in local soccer circles” in China.
去年7月，伊薩耶夫對俄羅斯體育新聞機構Sport Connect說，該俱樂部打算與中國合作伙伴成立一家合資企業，而且已經有人“混入了（中國）當地的足球界”。
In The Cover’s story last week, a travel agent in the western Chinese province of Sichuan named Yang Jun was quoted as saying that someone claiming to be a former member of the Anzhi Football Club had once reached out to him, hinting at a possible collaboration and saying that he had extensive contacts within FIFA, soccer’s governing body.
封面新聞在上週的報道中引用中國西部四川省的一位名叫楊軍的旅行社代理人的話說，一個自稱是安郅足球俱樂部退役球員的人曾找過他，該人暗示可以合作，並稱與足球管理機構國際足聯(FIFA)有很多聯繫。
On Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reported that Mr. Isaev had been arrested on suspicion of large-scale fraud. The Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday that the arrest was linked to World Cup ticketing fraud.
週三，國際文傳電訊社(Interfax)報道稱，伊薩耶夫因涉嫌大規模詐騙已被逮捕。《生意人報》(Kommersant)週四報道稱，他被逮捕與世界盃門票詐騙有關。
Kommersant said that Mr. Isaev, who it said became a top manager at Anzhi Msk in October after quitting the Anzhi Football Club, was suspected of causing an estimated $1.1 million in losses for Chinese fans. It said Mr. Isaev had pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying he had been set up by his business partners.
《生意人報》說，伊薩耶夫在退出安郅足球俱樂部後，去年10月成為安郅公司的一名高級經理，他涉嫌給中國球迷造成了約110萬美元（約合700萬元人民幣）的損失。該報說，伊薩耶夫對這些指控不承認有罪，稱自己被他的商業夥伴騙了。
Ms. Bryutova, Mr. Isaev’s business partner, was also detained, Kommersant said.
《生意人報》說，伊薩耶夫的商業夥伴布柳多娃也已被拘留。
In a statement on Thursday, Anzhi Football Club said that while Mr. Isaev was its executive director from January to October of 2017, his activity since then has had “no connection” to the club.
Until 2016, the owner of the Anzhi Football Club was Suleyman Kerimov, a Russian oligarch and lawmaker who made billions in oil, mining and finance. He was arrested last year in the French Riviera, over the Kremlin’s objections, in connection with a tax fraud and money laundering investigation.
直到2016年，安郅足球俱樂部的擁有者一直是蘇萊曼·克里莫夫(Suleyman Kerimov)，他是俄羅斯寡頭、議員，在石油、礦業和金融領域賺了數十億美元。儘管遭到克里姆林宮的反對，但他已於去年在法國裡維埃拉被逮捕，因為他與一個稅務欺詐和洗錢調查有關係。
Multiple attempts to reach Anzhi Msk and the Russian Embassy in Beijing were unsuccessful. The Chongqing Morning Post reported on Sunday that its reporters had visited Anzhi Msk’s office in Moscow and found it empty.
The Russian Chinese Culture Education Development Center, the Beijing ticketing agency, declined to comment, and several travel agents in Chongqing referred questions to their local tourism office.
An officer there said that five travel agencies and about 100 fans in Chongqing had been cheated out of tickets by Anzhi Msk. The officer, who only gave his surname, Guo, said on Wednesday that some of the agencies had purchased new tickets for their clients.
當地旅遊局的一名官員說，重慶市有五家旅行社和約100名球迷被安郅公司欺騙，買了假票。這名只說自己姓郭的官員週三表示，一些旅行社已經為客戶買到了新門票。
FIFA said in early June that more than 2.4 million World Cup tickets had been allocated to fans around the world, and that fans in China had bought 40,251 of them, making their country ninth in ticket sales.
國際足聯曾在6月初表示，已經將240多萬張世界盃門票分配給世界各地的球迷們，中國球迷總共購買了40251張門票，在全球門票購買上名列第九。
People’s Daily, a Chinese newspaper, warned in January that it was “highly possible” that anyone buying World Cup tickets from Chinese travel agencies would end up either with counterfeits or with no tickets at all.
今年1月，中國報紙《人民日報》曾警告說，從中國旅行社購買世界盃門票的人“很有可能”最終買到的是假票，或乾脆拿不到票。
But Mr. Xue, the Argentina fan from Guangzhou, said he dealt with an agency because he was desperate to see his favorite team in a tournament that he describes as “sacred.”
但來自廣州的阿根廷球迷薛先生說，他通過一家代理商買票，是因為他非常想看到一場他稱之為“神聖”的賽事中看到自己最喜歡的球隊比賽。
In April, he said, he was relieved to receive a message from the Beijing ticketing agency with details of his purchase. But May came and went without any sign of the ticket itself.
他說，今年4月，當他收到北京那家票務代理機構發來的有關購票細節的信息時，他鬆了一口氣。但5月一個月過去了，仍沒有任何票本身的跡象。
Days before the Argentina-Iceland match in Moscow, he received a letter in which the Beijing ticketing agency said it had “lost contact with the ticket holder” and would be unable to “deliver the physical ticket to the customer as originally planned,” according to a copy of the letter.
在阿根廷與冰島在莫斯科舉行比賽的幾天前，他收到了來自北京那家門票代理的一封信件，據該信的一份副本，信中說，由於“已與購票者失去聯繫”，無法“按照原先的安排向購票者交付實際的門票”。
“I realized I had been cheated,” Mr. Xue said.
“我意識到自己被騙了，”薛先生說。
One of his friends later bought him a ticket, paying more than $1,500. Mr. Xue said he boarded a flight to Moscow last week wondering if that ticket, whose face value was $165, would prove to be fake.
他的一個朋友後來花了1500多美元幫他買了一張票。薛先生說，他上週登上飛往莫斯科的航班，但一直擔心這張票面售價為165美元的門票是否會被證明也是假的。
Fortunately, it wasn’t, and on Saturday Mr. Xue was able to watch Argentina play Iceland to a draw. He said the experience was satisfying, even if he was disappointed with Lionel Messi’s performance.
幸運的是，那張票不是假的。週六，薛先生得以觀看阿根廷和冰島踢成平局。他說，儘管他對梅西的表現感到失望，但看球的經歷令他滿意。
In an interview on Wednesday, hours before he flew back to Guangzhou, Mr. Xue said that his Beijing ticketing agency had offered to repay the cost of his $620 ticket, plus an additional 15 percent for his troubles. But he said he had demanded $3,100 — a sum that included the cost of both his tickets, plus what he called emotional damages.
週三，在返回廣州的幾小時前，薛先生在接受採訪時說，北京那家票務代理已經提出要把他花的620美元票錢退給他，而且要為他遇到的麻煩多支付票價的15%。但他說，他已經提出了3100美元的賠償要求——包括兩張門票的票價，外加他稱之為精神損害的賠償。
“I’ve been so nervous,” he said.
“我一直很緊張啊，”他說。
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