"This impressive total underlines the extraordinary level of interest all over the globe. We've received applications from 195 different countries. I can't remember a World Cup attracting anything like this kind of demand in such a short space of time," said FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi. More than 80 per
cent of the applicants live in Europe, with 90 per cent of these coming from Germany.

The first of five sales periods ended on 31 March. As expected, the number of requests far exceeded the 812,000 tickets on offer. The tickets will now be allocated by ballot on 15 April.

The ballot will take place at FIFA World Cup Ticketing Center (FWCTC) headquarters in Frankfurt. "Obviously, our priority is to guarantee every applicant has an equal chance of success," said 2006 FIFA World Cup OC senior vice-president Horst R Schmidt. Inspections agency TÜV Rhineland has assessed and certified the procedure to be used, while the ballot will be personally supervised by a qualified official of the state of Hesse.

Orders exceeded the number of available tickets for every single one of the 64 matches. However, there are still four more sales phases. The first runs from May to November 2005, offering exclusively Team Specific Tickets. Individual match tickets go back on sale in the third phase, provisionally set for 1 December 2005 to 15 January 2006.  FIFA Media Dept. http://FIFAWorldCup.com