LONDON (AP) -- People still hoping to get tickets for the 2012 London Olympics won't get another shot at buying them until April — even as Britain's Olympics minister flatly rejected demands Friday for a full accounting of sales.
Hugh Robertson said it is not the right time for Olympics organizers to provide detailed information about the controversial ticketing process, which has been dogged by a series of problems. He spoke after a London watchdog group demanded that games organizers clearly show how sales break down between expensive and affordable tickets.
Critics have sought the data to see if a disproportionate number of tickets have been sold at higher prices — shutting out average people who couldn't pay for the most popular events.
"I think it's unreasonable to ask," Robertson said at the Track World Cup cycling event at the Olympic Velodrome. "This is the middle of a very big, complicated ticketing operation — they're trying to market tickets for 26 simultaneous world championships in one day. It's an operation that has never, ever been done before."
London Olympics organizers said they would respond to the assembly's request when ticket sales are done.
It has not been a good week for games organizers, who have been buffeted by the report from the London Assembly that argued that there was too much secrecy surrounding the allocation of Olympics tickets. The 25-member body, which acts as a check on London Mayor Boris Johnson, said the British public — which is putting up 9.3 billion pounds ($14.6 billion) for the event — deserves to know whether they ever had a shot at an affordable ticket.
The organizing committee — called LOCOG — is a private entity, and has refused to provide information for commercial reasons. But the assembly said other Olympic committees — notably that of Sydney — were able to hand over the data sooner and that London should too.
Dee Doocey, the chair of the assembly committee that examined the ticketing process, told the BBC on Thursday that it was time for the committee to come clean.
"I suspect that there's probably not enough tickets at affordable prices available to the public as we've been led to believe," she said.
Part of the reason the report was so controversial is the London's Olympic ticketing process has been so fraught. It has been slowed by computer problems and huge demand. A complicated lottery system in which people blindly registered for tickets and handed over their credit card details to pay for them before they knew what — if any — tickets they were getting added to public unease.
In the first round, about 22 million requests came in for the 6.6 million tickets, which range in price from 20.12 pounds ($31.60) to 2,012 pounds ($3,159). Further rounds were blighted by computer problems, and plans for future ticket sales have failed to stem public grumbling. Ticket allocations for sponsors are likely to come under even greater scrutiny, mostly because of the impression that the wealthy and connected get special treatment.
There is still confusion about the next ticket offering, expected in April. New figures indicate about 4 million tickets are still unsold, including many for Paralympic events and soccer matches.
More criticism is certain to follow comments by committee chief executive officer Paul Deighton, who told the BBC that people may have to pay at the prime vantage point of the Olympic cycle road race. The assumption had been that spectators lining the road would be able to do so for free — even at the viewing point at Box Hill, Surrey.
The race includes a 9.6-mile (15.5 kilometer) circuit around the viewing point where spectators would be able to see riders multiple times. The race finishes at the Mall in London. Deighton told the BBC it would be "perfectly appropriate ... to consider charging for the tickets."
"Box Hill is a challenging environment because it's highly protected," he said. "It's not the easiest place to watch things from or to control big crowds. It's a prime viewing slot, the men's race goes round it nine times; it's better, frankly, than being at the start and finish in the Mall."
The 2012 London Olympics start July 27 and end Aug. 12.
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