In total 2.93 million tickets are available to football fans and the race for the first batch of 812,000 tickets produced mass hysteria with two and a half million ticket requests registered on last Thursday's deadline day alone.

"The impressive figures underline the interest in the World Cup across the globe," explained FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi.

"The requests come from over 195 countries. I can honestly not remember a World Cup where demand was so high."

As expected demand has far outstripped supply and on April 15 World Cup organisers will determine who are the lucky recipients of the 812,000 tickets via a lottery.

Ticket prices range from 35 euros to 600 euros for football's biggest showpiece running from June 9 until July 9 2006.