90 percent of FIFA World Cup tickets sold
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Nearly 90 percent of the three million tickets for the FIFA World Cup have been sold, South Africa's 2010 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the 2010 FIFA World Cup said Wednesday.
Only about 300,000 tickets were still available for the tournament, which kicks off on June 11.
"We are approaching 90 percent of ticket sales for the World Cup," Greg Fredericks, head of the office for LOC chief executive Danny Jordaan, told reporters in Johannesburg.
Fredericks said the LOC has been on a very tight budget.
"This budget was drawn up and given to us in 2005, and 2010 is a different world," he said.
He added that the LOC was running "a very, very tight ship".
Fredericks said world football body FIFA gave the LOC a budget of about 430 million U.S. dollars in 2005.
"It's a tight budget... at one stage were very concerned," he said, but then the exchange rate changed and the financial situation improved again."
Fredericks told the South African Press Association (SAPA) that the LOC got all its money from FIFA and was only given a bit extra for team base camp preparations in South Africa.
Teams from 32 nations will compete in the tournament, which runs until July 11.
Although the LOC received money from ticket sales, it had to hire the stadiums from the municipalities at a very high cost, Fredericks told SAPA.
In addition, the cost of generators and back-up generators at the stadiums was huge, he said.
"But I can understand why we've got to have a tight budget. This thing -- organizing the World Cup -- can spiral out of control."
