FIFA Surprised by 10 Million Ticket Requests for World Cup

The International Football Federation says that it is surprised by the 10 million requests for tickets to next year's World Cup football (soccer) tournament in Germany.

By the time the deadline passed Thursday, FIFA says orders came from 195 countries, with 80 percent of the requests for 812,000 tickets coming from Europe. Almost all of the requests came by way of the Internet.

The tickets will be distributed through a lottery April 15. The lottery is expected to take more than 24 hours with more than 1,000 draws for every category. The next five phases of ticket sales run from May to November.

A total of 3.3 million tickets will be sold to the 64 matches. Prices range from around $45 to $780 for the final in Berlin July 9. The World Cup starts June 9, 2006 in Munich, Germany.