FIFA Inundated with Almost 1.2 Million World Cup Ticket Requests

FIFA have announced a total of 1,179,363 tickets were requested within 24 hours of the opening of the second sales phase for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Approximately 86% were requested by Brazilian football fans, thus making Brazil the country with the highest number of requests ahead of USA (38,009), Argentina (30,659), Chile (23,014), Colombia (12,103), Mexico (11,580), Australia (8,064), Germany (6,556), England (6,469) and France (6,006).

Football fans have until 12.00 (CET) on 30 January 2014 to apply for tickets on FIFA’s site. During this sales period, all fans have an equal chance to be successful, regardless of the date of the ticket request, as all requests will be amalgamated at the end of the phase and processed together. In the event that the number of requests received per product and category exceeds the number of tickets available, a lottery will be held to determine the successful applicants.

Furthermore, 29,913 requests have been received to date for the participating member association (PMA) ticket category, sales of which also started on Sunday, 8 December 2013 but will remain open until 7 February 2014. 

FIFA has reserved 16% of the tickets for every match for fans from both teams (8% per team per match), including tickets for Brazilian and Croatian fans for the opening match at Arena Corinthians in São Paulo on 12 June 2014. To be eligible for PMA tickets, applicants must either reside in or be a national of the country whose match they wish to attend. In this quota, only tickets from categories 1-3 are available.