Soccer: FIFA expect record breaking World Cup

FIFA expects to make a record £300m by selling all the tickets for next year’s World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan.

David Will, vice president of football’s world governing body, said FIFA was confident of reaching its aim of ‘‘filling every seat in every stadium for every match’’ at the 2002 finals.

There are a total of 3.179m tickets for the 64 matches in the two countries, which will start with an opening match in Seoul on May 31 next year and end with the final in Yokohama, Japan on June 30, 2002.

Jaime Byrom, of FIFA ticketing agent Byrom Plc, said 2.9m of the tickets would be put on sale 1.45m in South Korea and Japan, 580,000 through national associations, about 250,000 on general international sale and the rest to commercial affiliates and partners.

He said that if all are sold around £300m would be raised in revenue. This would be ‘‘significantly higher’’ than the 1998 finals in France, Byrom said, but no figures were given for the last World Cup.

Following an international controversy over the way the bulk of tickets for France ’98 went to the French market, FIFA has appointed special ticket agents for this tournament.

FIFA has said the system used is the fairest ever. The first phase of international applications by internet and mail for tickets for international sale will end on April 30.

A random computer draw to choose recipients will be held on May 15.

Will said there had been applications from 120 nations for tickets.

When South Korea and Japan started taking domestic applications for tickets in February, problems with the Fifaworldcup.com Internet site prevented them from taking on-line applications.

Will said the sale in South Korea had finished with a ‘‘remarkable success.’’

He said the Korean organising committee ‘‘made a remarkable recovery from these problems by setting up their own website and their own system for completing the sales.’’