By Robbie Blakeley, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The second phase of ticket sales for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil started this past Sunday, December 8th. The move comes immediately after the group stage draw for the tournament, held this past Friday. Now fans know when and where their teams will be playing and planning for football’s biggest tournament can begin in earnest.
Tickets will be on sale for the next eight weeks, until January 30th, with 62 of the 64 games available. The exceptions are the opening game in São Paulo and the final at Rio’s Maracanã Stadium.
Should more people request tickets than are made available then they will be distributed by a random draw. The same happened last time during the first phase, when over six million people tried to buy World Cup tickets.
During that phase over one million tickets were sold last year and early indications have shown demand will be high this time around as well. However, as tickets are not being sold on a first come first served basis, there is no need to rush an online order. A potential purchaser will have as much chance of receiving tickets ordering on January 30th as on December 8th.
According to FIFA, over 740,000 tickets requests had already been made in the first twelve hours of sales. Approximately 86 percent of those orders have come from host nation Brazil, with the U.S., England and Australia all in the top ten. Tickets can be ordered online at www.fifa.com/ticketing.
Read more (in Portuguese).
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