HONG KONG — Xue Qiulian has been a die-hard fan of Argentina’s national soccer team since his junior high school days in Guangzhou, a southern Chinese megacity. But his dream of seeing the team play live was always out of reach — until this year, when he could finally afford to attend the World Cup, in Russia.
In March, when Xue, 30, tried to purchase a ticket to Argentina’s World Cup match last week against Iceland, he found that official ticket agents were all sold out. Desperate to see the match, he bought a ticket through a Beijing agency, which he had found by way of an Argentina fans’ group on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.