Sao Paulo, Brazil (BBN)-The huge global excitement is reflected by the unprecedented number of ticket requests, with more than 11 million received to date for about 3.1 million available tickets.
To date, a total of 2,961,911 tickets have been sold, including more than 2.2 million directly via FIFA.com to the general public, said a press statement of FIFA.
“For every fan, it is a dream to be able to experience live a FIFA World Cup in the country of the only five-time world champions – never before have we sold so many tickets directly to the general public, and this was important to us,” said FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke.
“The opening match and the final were even oversubscribed ten times. The long queues of people who turned up at the ticketing centres early yesterday morning to buy World Cup tickets shows the high level of interest that Brazilians and international fans have in the 2014 FIFA World Cup,” he said.
Overall, 60 percent of the tickets were bought by Brazilians and 40 percent by fans from the rest of the world.
After hosts Brazil (1,363,179), the USA leads the international pack with 196,838 tickets, followed by Argentina (61,021), Germany (58,778), England (57,917), Colombia (54,477), Australia (52,289), Chile (38,638), France (34,865) and Mexico (33,694).
There are a few tickets left for just 27 of the 64 matches: the opening match, semi-finals and final are sold out.
However, fans still on the lookout for tickets should keep checking www.FIFA.com/tickets, as potential resales or unpaid purchases mean that some tickets may go back on offer to the general public.
FIFA is bearing the entire operational costs for staging the 2014 FIFA World Cup amounting about USD two billion, with half of this figure (USD one billion) being directly invested in the Brazilian economy through the hiring of local services.
This latter figure covers the entire Local Organising Committee budget, team travel and lodging, TV production costs, ticketing operations, accommodation, the IT solution and the overall competitions management, i.e. the entire organisation of the matches, plus refereeing and the marketing operations.
Chile will be the fourth FIFA World Cup team to arrive in Brazil tonight, after Australia, Croatia and Iran.
The last teams to arrive will be Ghana, Korea Republic and Portugal on 11 June.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil will also serve as a benchmark in the development of a new strategy in the fight against doping, with the introduction of player biological profiling including blood and urine samples for the first time at a FIFA World Cup.
Every single player will be tested prior to the competition in addition to the routine anti-doping tests taken during the competition.
The 20th FIFA World Cup in Brazil promises to be a celebration of friendship and passion for the beautiful game.
Recent incidents of racism have emphasised the need for concrete action to tackle this scourge of the game head on.
The FIFA World Cup, which will be viewed all over the world, is the ideal platform from which to signal a clear rejection of any form of discrimination.
FIFA therefore launched a social media campaign today inviting people around the world to unite against racism by posting messages with the #saynotoracism hashtag.
BBN/ANS-07June14-10:40am (BST)
