Olympic tickets ‘for young people’ given away to universities – after students have gone

50 tickets to Olympic events will be given to every higher education institution in the country as part of an “extension” of the Ticketshare programme to get young people to the Games – even though most students will have gone home for the summer.

The allocation is managed by the Further and Higher Education Unit for the 2012 Games, Podium, which has a commitment “to ensure that as many young people as possible get to attend the Games”.

And it seems that the students aren’t the only ones on a break – phonecalls to three members of Podium’s media team this week went unanswered when we tried to contact them about the initiative.

The announcement comes in the wake of reports that two-thirds of Olympic football tickets at Hampden Park remain unsold and that thousands of unsold tickets have been offered to sponsors after sales as a whole slowed down.

50,000 other tickets will also be given away to sport clubs, charities and youth projects in Scotland.