Tickets for football's 2006 World Cup in Germany are selling briskly. Organizers report that ticket orders, which began February 1, have surpassed the two million barrier.
By Thursday morning, nearly 320,000 applications had been received requesting a total of almost 2.2 million tickets. The applications orginate from 176 different countries, with 96 percent from Europe and 85 percent from Germany.
A ticketing spokesman said some matches are overbooked, especially the final, but there are still many of the first round group matches available.
Just over 800,000 tickets are on offer in the first sales period until the end of next month. The lucky recipients of FIFA World Cup tickets will be picked in a match-by-match random draw on April 15. After that, a second sales period will begin.
The total seating capacity for the 64-game tournament is 3.37 million. Tickets, which can be purchased online, range in price from $46 to $784.
