London Olympic organisers to pay full price for unwanted tickets

London Olympic organisers will buy back unwanted tickets for this year's Games directly at face value but fans wanting to get their hands on them will have to wait until April.

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An official re-sale website, run by London 2012 partner Ticket master and suspended due to computer problems only hours after it opened last Friday, was due to go back online at 1500 GMT on Tuesday.

However, organisers LOCOG said in a statement that the British public would have to wait to buy any returns until less than four months before the Games open on July 27.

Apologising for the technical problems, they said they would buy back any tickets at face value up until February 3 through the website www.tickets.london2012.com.

"Every ticket we purchase from the public will be offered back to the public from April," LOCOG commercial director Chris Townsend said.

"We believe this system -- purchasing the tickets back from customers now, and offering them again from April, will result in a better customer experience for everyone."

LOCOG said they would release further information on the purchase process in due course.

The problem with the re-sale website came after complaints last year when the ticketing site crashed initially under the surge in demand and many fans were left empty-handed and disappointed.