Another 250,000 tickets on sale from 12 December

The third sales period for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ will begin on 12 December 2005, with 250,000 more tickets going on sale. The page on www.FIFAworldcup.com containing the order form will be re-launched at midday, and tickets will be available for ordering until 15 January 2006. As with the first sales period, the tickets will be distributed after a ballot, since it is assumed that demand will outweigh supply. The order in which the bookings are received will have no bearing on the attribution of the tickets.
"The Final Draw on 9 December 2005 in Leipzig saw the match schedule finalised and the individual ties drawn for the various stadia. Fans from around the world now have a chance to order specific tickets. Since we also assume that demand will far outweigh the available allocation of tickets, we will perform a ballot on 31 January 2006 of all orders received. There is no fairer way of distributing the tickets than by drawing lots," explains OC Vice President Horst R. Schmidt.

Except for the Opening Match, tickets will be available for all games, including Germany’s games, the semi-finals and Final. “Of course, the availability for these games as well as for those involving teams considered to be more attractive will be relatively much smaller,” continued Schmidt.

Compared with the first two sales periods, in which more than 80 percent of orders came from Europe, with 90 percent of those from Germany, the OC is expecting a noticeable rise in orders from abroad. "We can feel the interest from participating teams and from neighbouring countries increasing enormously,” continued Schmidt. “We will thus be catering more to these international wishes and interests."

100,000 tickets in the third sales period have come from the Hospitality Programme. Added to these are returns from sponsors as well as national associations from the first two sales periods. Further blocks have also been released from safety reserve seats.

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