Pretoria - As from this week soccer fans will be able to apply for 2010 FIFA World Cup tickets over the phone.

A special call centre, which started operating on Monday, has been set up for this purpose. It will operate from 8am to 5pm Central European Time (CET) and 9am to 6pm South African time. 

Fans can call 083 123 2010 as well as the international number +41 44583 2010.

Meanwhile, 84 percent of the World Cup tickets sold so far in the fourth phase of ticket sales have been bought by South Africans.

Pretoria - The FIFA World Cup Ticketing Sub-Committee will open a call centre on Monday to assist soccer fans who want buy tickets for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. 

Horst Schmidt, chairman of the FIFA World Cup Ticketing Sub-Committee, said the call centre will operate from 10:30 am until 7:30 pm, South African time. 

"The fans understand that time is crucial now, as the tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis and that they should not wait for the last minute over-the-counter sales," he said. 

Rustenburg - FIFA will increase the number of Category 4 tickets for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, says General-Secretary Jerome Valcke.

"These are specially-priced tickets for South African residents selling at R140," he said on Tuesday at a workshop held for the 32 teams participating in the upcoming tourney in June. .

He said 11 percent of stadium capacity was currently made up of Category 4 tickets and FIFA hoped to increase this to 20 percent for most matches.

Chile is one of the four founding member nations of CONMEBOL which include Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The members established the South American footballing organization on 9 July 1916. The four associations enacted and participated in the first held South American Championship which would later be re-named the Copa America.

Chile is one of the original thirteen national teams that competed in the inaugural 1930 World Cup. They started off well beating Mexico and France without conceding a goal. A 3-1 loss to Argentina in their final game left them in second place within the group, eliminating them from the tournament. In the 1950 World Cup, Chile was eliminated in the first round but defeated the United States 5-2.

The Brazil national football team is the national team of Brazil and is managed by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) that represents Brazil in international football competitions. They are the most successful national football team in the history of the World Cup, with five championships (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002). A common quip about football is: "The English invented it, the Brazilian perfected it." Currently ranked second by FIFA, Brazil is consistently among the strongest football nations in the world and is the only team to have played in every World Cup.

The first match of the Brazil national football team is generally considered to be a 1914 match between a Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo select team and the English club Exeter City. Brazil won 2–0 with goals by Oswaldo Gomes and Osman, whilst others claim a 3–3 draw. In contrast to future successes, the nation's early appearances were far from brilliant, partly due to internal strife within Brazilian football over professionalism, which rendered the Brazilian Football Confederation unable to field full-strength teams.