S Africa urges fans to snap up World Cup tickets

Soccer fans planning on attending the 2010 World Cup need to take advantage of the last week of the second phase in tournament ticket sales, the 2010 World Cup local organizing committee (LOC) said on Friday.

"Now is the time to avoid the mad rush which will come when the third phase of sales is opened on Dec. 5," LOC head Danny Jordaan said in a statement.

"The day before the World Cup draw taking place in Cape Town, fans all over the world will be rushing to buy up tickets for the group matches in which their respective teams will be a part of," said Jordaan.

The closing date for tickets for the second phase is Nov. 16.

A total of 665,416 tickets have been sold to date, with 354,714of those in South Africa.

Jordaan said "hundreds of thousands" of South Africans took advantage of the first two ticket sales phases.

"We have sold out of category four tickets in this phase. These tickets were exclusively for sale to South Africans. To date approximately half of the 700,000 tickets sold have been bought by South Africans."

There are four ticket categories -- one being the most expensive and four the cheapest. There are five ticketing phases which work on a "first come first served" basis.

There are still tickets left in both the individual match option, where tickets are purchased for a single match at a time, as well as the team-specific option where a fan can follow a team as it progresses through the tournament.

Fans of Brazil and England will have to wait for the next phase to purchase team-specific tickets. Those who want to follow teams like Bafana Bafana, Argentina, Spain, Cote d'Ivoire and Germany can still do so.

Currently the most number of tickets left are at Johannesburg's Soccer City and Durban's Moses Mabhida Stadium.

There are two ways to purchase tickets for the tournament. The first is by filling in an application form available from First National Bank branches.

Source: Xinhua