Organisers had considered giving away tickets in order to fill empty seats at stadiums during the tournament, but abandoned the idea as not practical.

"Despite all our efforts, we realise there will be no-shows," German organising committee vice president Horst Schmidt said Saturday. "We tried to devise a system but were not very successful. We thought of soldiers, clubs, schools, but it's impossible to organise. They have to wait, and then there may not be any tickets.

"So we'll use volunteers who do not have any specific thing to do. Anything else is not feasible."

At the 2002 World Cup, organisers were criticised because tens of thousands of tickets weren't used. For this World Cup, which begins Friday in Munich, the criticism has been that too many tickets have been reserved for sponsors, affiliates of FIFA and organisers. Security measures put in place to limit counterfeiting and ticket scalping have also come under fire.

"I have been involved in many World Cups, and I must say this World Cup is extremely well-prepared," said Lennart Johansson, the chairman of the FIFA World Cup organising committee.

More than 98 per cent of the more than 3 million tickets that were initially available have been sold, putting this World Cup on pace to be the second-best attended behind the 1994 World Cup in the United States -- which drew nearly 3.6 million fans.

About 64 per cent of the World Cup tickets were reserved for sponsors, affiliates, competing teams and non-competing soccer federations. Since May 15, 11,000 of those tickets were put on sale to the general public and sold, Schmidt said.

"People have a moral obligation not to keep a ticket they know is not going to be used," FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi said.