By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

July 12 - Britain's Sports Journalists' Association (SJA) are to seek an urgent meeting with London 2012 officials over proposals from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to sell some seats usually reserved for the media to the public.


The plan emerged during the IOC's Coordination Commission visit to London last when discussions took place of how to avoid the problems of empty seats in stadiums that were supposed to be sold-out that overshadowed the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Gilbert Felli, the IOC's Executive Director of the Olympic Games, said: "We have been working on this because there has been criticism of the accredited seating for media or Olympic family members.

"In the media, for instance, we know in some preliminary events people are not coming, so we are going to be able to sell those tickets to spectators and then re-open in the evening."

But the SJA are concerned about the proposal.

"Just because a press seat looks to be ‘unoccupied’ at any point during a session, it does not mean that the journalist who has been allocated that place is not in the stadium working," SJA secretary Steven Downes told the association's website. 

"No journalist particularly enjoys spending three hours of a morning session in the Mixed Zone, for instance, but they will still need to return to a seat in the tribune to work, and they will often be there long after the sports session has finished and the TV cameras have been switched off.

"Reallocating media seats is a 'soft' option for the organisers.

"We would be very reluctant to let media seats go, in case someone decides we don’t get them back for whatever reason.

"The work pattern of many newspapermen will be significantly different to Beijing or Sydney [in 2000] because of the timezone differences and the expectation of many outlets to provide ever more coverage on their websites is likely to see reporters filing live even during morning sessions."

To find out more about the SJA click here.

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