World Cup 2010 South Africa

FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has pledged to increase the number of World Cup tickets available to South African residents in order to ensure that the summer's finals are sold out.

It is reported that 2.1 million of 2.9 million tickets have been sold for football's showpiece event but FIFA is keen to ensure that the stadia are full to capacity for every game.

Valcke has announced that with overseas supporters not taking up their full allocations, category two and three tickets will be converted to category four seats, which are cheaper and available to South Africans.

"We will increase the number of category four tickets because we cannot have a situation where the World Cup is in South Africa and people cannot see matches," Valcke told the Telegraph. "This will bring less income to FIFA, but we have already brought in the income we need to match the organising committee budget, which is USD 423 million.''

Valcke believes airline and travel companies should take their portion of the blame for unsold tickets after attempting to take advantage of the World Cup by raising prices.

"I think that we are facing a peak time where companies feel that they can put the highest level of pricing,'' he said. "We want to make sure that fans can afford to travel to South Africa. It is clear that people have decided that because it is the World Cup they ask the highest amount possible to maximise income, but it doesn't work today.

"They forget that it is a long distance to travel to South Africa, you need to stay for more than a few days, so they have to make offers that the fans can afford.''

   Source: espn.com