ZURICH: FIFA announced on Thursday that more than 2.4 million tickets have been sold to football fans globally for the World Cup 2018 in Russia, starting next week.
Some 2,403,116 tickets have been sold since sales began September 2017, and Latin American fans are leading global demand, FIFA stated.
While the maximum number of tickets sold outside Russia has come from the US (88,825), five Latin American countries figure in the Top 10 list.
The nine countries other than the US in the Top 10 are Brazil (72,512), Colombia (65,234), Germany (62,541), Mexico (60,302), Argentina (54,031), Peru (43,583), China (40,251), Australia (36,359) and England (32,362).
Russian fans, meanwhile, have bought 871,797 tickets thus far.
The World Cup will kick off on June 14 when Russia meet Saudi Arabia at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. The final will be played at the same venue on July 15.
FIFA said a new batch of tickets for all matches would be made available on a first-come first-served basis on Friday.
“Fans are advised to place their orders as soon as tickets go on sale as high demand is expected and tickets are likely to sell out very quickly,” the statement said.
FIFA added that discounted tickets for seats with a partially obstructed view will also be made available for Russian residents only.
The numbers show that the international demand for tickets comes up to 54%. It is expected to increase as last minute sales are on-going till 15 July. Besides this, FIFA has made an additional 100,000 tickets available on their official website Thursday exclusively for Russian residents.
