Some of the seats at the Olympic events have been filled by sports fans cheering on their favourite stars and their national teams.

Whole swathes of posh seats, corporate seats, seats reserved for sponsors and others in the so-called Olympic family have been empty, disfiguring the crowd scenes like ugly gaps in a row of teeth, and devaluing the atmosphere.

What happened to the “sold out” London Olympics, a games in which, we were told by organisers, there had been a clamour for tickets so huge that demand could not be satisfied?

Those same organisers now face some tough questions about why genuine sports lovers are being shut out of the games while thousands who have been allocated privileged tickets have not bothered to use them.

There is a dilemma behind the problem.

Everybody said they did not want the London Olympics to cost too much, and the key to bringing costs down has been the involvement of sponsors pumping in money.

In return, they receive freebie tickets, although they are not strictly freebies but a thank you for their cash and their generous support.

The trouble is, if they are given tickets that they have not directly paid for, they can take them or leave them – and a lot are plainly doing the latter.

It was the same in Beijing.

Salopians and those from elsewhere who applied for tickets and did not get them are justifiably angry about the empty seats. It should not be beyond the wit of the organisers to have a system in place in which tickets which are not going to be used are redirected to genuine sports fans.

It is a lesson that is being learned.

What a shame it is being learned so late in the day.