Brazil 2014 ticket requests top 4.5 million

With a week to go before the end of the first phase of ticket sales for the 2014 World Cup, over 4.5 million tickets have been requested for the 64 matches.

Brazilians made 77 per cent of the requests, for about 3.4 million tickets. Argentines applied for 223,686 tickets and America was the country with the 3rd highest number of applications with 175,122. FIFA says people from more than 200 countries have sought tickets.

Thierry Weil, FIFA Marketing Director, said: “This impressive total so far underlines the extraordinary level of interest in this 20th FIFA World Cup being played next year in the country of the five-time world champions.

“However, football fans who apply by next Thursday have as good a chance of obtaining tickets as those who have already applied, as all applications made from the beginning to the end of the sales window are collected together and drawn on a lottery basis when the number of requests exceeds the tickets available.”

Although demand has been strong for team specific tickets, the strength of interest in venue specific tickets is very good news for organisers, who will be confident that most matches will be played in front of full houses.

This is in marked contrast to South Africa where local audiences took little interest in matches not involving the hosts. Brazil received more requests for tickets in the first 24 hours of the registration process, than South Africa did in the whole of the first round of ticket sales. In fairness to South Africa, the cost of buying World Cup tickets was simply beyond the reach of the vast majority of the country’s population.

About 1 million tickets will be distributed at the end of this first round, with a second round starting after the qualifying teams are drawn into groups in December.

So far so good. All that’s lacking now is the stadiums in which these ticket holders can sit. If Brazil can sort those out, we could be in for one hell of a World Cup next year.