TICKETS FOR SOUTH AFRICA NOT SELLING

Reports from ESPN today revealed that a mammoth 650,000 tickets for this summer's World Cup in South Africa are still unsold.

FIFA are refusing to panic and planning to make a final push for sales in the remaining weeks leading up to the tournament. However the figures make for stark reading, especially in comparison to the previous World Cup.

The 2006 tournament, which was held in Germany, received an incredible 15 million applications for the 3.4 million tickets they had available but South Africa is having to work much harder to attract the fans.

Even the English fans, infamous for travelling in their numbers, have not snapped up tickets as expected with the FA sending back over 1,000 of their allocated 29,000 tickets to FIFA.

The safety of the host nation has been questioned on countless occasions since FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South Africa and it appears to be proving a real decision maker for fans.

The lack of sales has been attributed to safety fears, heavy costs of flights and accommodation and the logistical problems of getting around a vast country with a limited infrastructure. Fans cannot simply base themselves in one city as their teams are likely to be playing in varying destinations, meaning additional travel costs will incur as they travel across the country.

FIFA issued a statement in which they confirmed tickets would now be more readily available saying, "Ticketing centres in host cities will now be open for sales until July 11, the day of the final, plus the call centre. There will also be mobile sales units."

Despite the large number of unsold tickets some 2.3 million tickets have so far been sold so far with sales figures late last year showing South African's had bought more tickets than the rest of the world combined. The host fans had bought over 340,000 tickets with American fans leading the way for foreigners, buying almost 83,000 tickets. British fans rounded off the top three with 48,000 tickets bought.