THOUSANDS more tickets for Olympics football events in Scotland will be handed out after organisers failed to sell more than half of the allocation with just weeks to go.

Around 30,000 tickets have already been donated to schools and sports clubs as part of a ticketshare scheme, but the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) yesterday confirmed that more are to be handed out.

The move follows reports that just 80,000 tickets have been sold for the fixtures at Hampden Park in Glasgow out of a possible 250,000.

Locog refused to confirm the exact figures but said that more than half of the tickets are still available.

Four men's and four women's matches will be staged at the national stadium, starting on July 25, including a men's group match between Spain and Japan and a women's quarter final.

A Locog spokesman said: "Across the UK, we have sold 1.3 million football tickets, with 1.2 million still on sale.

"Through our ticketshare scheme, tickets are donated to school children, sport clubs and other good causes. We want as many young people as possible to go to the Olympics and we are now looking to expand this scheme."

He denied that this was a direct result of poor ticket sales in Scotland, adding: "We are comfortable with the way things are going at the moment."

The spokesman added that organisers are confident the tickets will sell over the next few weeks in the lead up to the events.

He said: "We have over half of the tickets for the Hampden Park fixtures still available but we know Scotland is a passionate football country and the pricing structure for tickets is affordable."

Hampden is one of six venues hosting Olympic football matches. The others are City of Coventry Stadium, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Old Trafford in Manchester, St James' Park in Newcastle and Wembley in London.

Ticket prices for the Hampden games are priced between £20 and £40 per adult.