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Sao Paulo - Football's governing body FIFA have on Tuesday announced a record first allocation of tickets for next year's World Cup in Brazil after overseeing a random distribution of almost 900 000 tickets to fans from 188 nations.
"The whole draw procedure worked smoothly. Of course, we would have liked to please even more football fans at this stage, but there will be other ticket sales windows, with the next one starting in less than a week," said Thierry Weil, FIFA Marketing Director, following an electronic lottery in Manchester, England.
"By using the electronic random selection draw, we were able to guarantee that the whole procedure remained fair and all applicants had an equal chance."
FIFA announced it to be "by far the highest number of tickets to be allocated during a first sales window".
FIFA said it had allocated a total of 889 305 tickets with 71.5% going to Brazilians.
Overall, 6.2 million requests for tickets have been registered -- almost double the total available.
Aside from the host nation, the United States received the largest number of tickets with 66 646, followed by Britain (22 257), Germany (18 019) and Australia (15 401).
For the 2006 event in Germany, FIFA said eight million requests were made and 652 521 were successful while in 2010, when South Africa hosted the tournament, 1.8 million requests were put in and 381 559 tickets were distributed.
The next sales window, hosted by FIFA's website FIFA.com, will start on November 11, with an estimated 228 959 tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis.
But none will be available for the opening match in Sao Paulo, the final in Rio de Janerio's Maracana Stadium, either of the semi-finals, Brazil's group-stage matches or the round of 16 match at Belo Horizonte.
Further purchases of remaining tickets can be made from December 8 after the draw determines the group match schedule for the 32 teams.
In total, FIFA is making available 3.72 million tickets for the World Cup, to be played in 12 Brazilian cities from June 12 to July 13.
