Johannesburg - Tickets for the final and the semi-finals of the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa next year have sold out, the world football body FIFA announced on Thursday. Tickets for the opening game between South Africa and a yet-to-be-decided opponent in Johannesburg on June 11 have also sold out, as have tickets for all World Cup games in the cities of Cape Town, Nelspruit and Pretoria, FIFA said.
The second phase of ticket sales for the month-long tournament kicked off on May 4 on a first-come-first-served basis.
FIFA said there had been "incredible demand for individual match tickets."
In total, since tickets first went on sale in February, some 655,000 tickets for individual games have been sold, FIFA's spokeswoman in South Africa, Delia Fischer, said.
Fans can also buy team-specific ticket series to follow the team of their choice.
If their chosen team gets knocked out, the fan automatically follows the winning team at each state - right up to the final for fans who buy a seven-game team-specific ticket.
Sales of the team-specific ticket series have been brisk, with the England, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Ireland and Netherlands series having already sold out, FIFA said in a statement.
Fans from those countries still have a chance to see their team in action by buying individual match tickets, although the match schedule will not be known until the final World Cup draw in December.
FIFA also pointed out that fans could also still try to obtain tickets for the opening match, semi-finals or final by buying a seven-game team-specific series to follow a country that has not sold out.
In less than three weeks, South Africa will host the Confederations Cup, which is held every four years in the World Cup host nation a year beforehand.
Brazil, the United States, Italy, Spain, Egypt, South Africa, New Zealand and Iraq will compete in the two-week event, which is seen as a test of South Africa's preparedness to host the World Cup.
Tickets are still available for several of those games, including the highly-anticipated Brazil-Italy encounter, FIFA said.
