Football associations across the globe have been returning unsold World Cup tickets for the first time in the modern history of the tournament, according to the Daily Mirror.

Some 650,000 of the 2.95 million available seats are still unsold for the tournament in South Africa, which kicks off in just over 11 weeks time.

And the newspaper reports that for the first time at a modern World Cup even the allocations sent to competing nations are being returned unsold to FIFA.

Of the 570,000 seats made available to the competing nations, an astonishing 330,000 - nearly 60 per cent - are being sent back to organisers.

Even in England, the best-supported nation, 1,000 of the FA's 29,000-ticket allocation is being returned due to lack of interest. The FA previously asked for a three-month extension to sell even those seats.

Worries over rapidly inflating flight and hotel costs, together with safety fears for visitors, are thought to have put fans off making the journey.

At the last World Cup in Germany in 2006, all seats were sold months in advance as 15m applications were made for 3.4m tickets.

http://g.uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/world-cup

posted by Liz

I am a middle aged British woman. I was arrested by corrupt South African police for a minor traffic offence and thrown in a stinking jail in Cape Town (see www.noseweek.co.za 'Good Cop, NoGood Cop'. While I was losing my mind in the darkness and the stench, the corrupt cops were stealing my credit cards and my identity documents and joyriding in my sports car. I left South Africa never to return. It is not only the criminals you must fear there, but the lawyers, the magistrates, the judges and the security forces. The country is rotten to the core. Any football supporters who are stupid enough to follow women back to the townships will bring Aids back to their own wives and girlfriends, that's if they dont lose their lives first down some dark alleyway where they will be mugged and left for dead. Life means nothing down there, especially if you are white. Be afraid, be very afraid,

what did FIFA expect? this country is at the other side of the world, not tourist friendly unless you go to safaris, crime rate is SKY HIGH,corruption isnt far behind and the country is HIV infested.

many people are thinking:"hey, i am going to sit this one out and enjoy it from home. . . . . . .and stay alive!"