Johannesburg - World football body FIFA aims to prevent a black market trade in cheap tickets for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa by making tickets for the tournament only available for collection in the country, FIFA announced Wednesday.

Tickets for the tournament go on sale to the general public on Friday on FIFA's website, fifa. com, and through nationwide branches of South Africa's First National Bank (FNB), a national World Cup sponsor.

This sale starts online at 11 a. m. GMT (1 p. m. South African time) and runs until March 31.

Fans applying for a ticket in this first of five ticket-sale phases will be entered into a draw that takes place on April 15. Within three days, they should be notified if they were successful.

Those who were unsuccessful will have several more opportunities to buy tickets, right up until the day of the World Cup final on July
11, 2010.

In total, around 3 million paid tickets will be available for the tournament that begins on June 11, 2010, and is being staged in nine cities around South Africa.

Of these, around 1 million tickets will be given to FIFA commercial affiliates, hospitality providers and broadcast outlets, leaving around
2 million tickets for the general public, of which 743,965 tickets will be made available from Friday.

Irrespective of how early they apply, fans will have to wait until April 2010 to hold a ticket in their hands, when the tickets will be available for collection at designated ticketing centres in the nine host cities and some international airports.

International fans will enter their payment cards into a terminal to redeem their ticket. Those who bought their tickets through FNB will be issued with special prepaid cards, which they use to withdraw their tickets.

In order to facilitate the access of ordinary South African football fans to a tournament that might otherwise be beyond their reach, FIFA has blocked off around 16 per cent of the tickets - all the cheapest category 4 tickets - for South African residents.

These tickets start at 140 rands (13.80 dollars), "which is the cheapest price of a World Cup ticket for many, many years," David Will, head of the FIFA sub-ticketing committee told a media ticketing seminar in Johannesburg.

Addressing concerns that these tickets might find their ways into the hands of overseas fans, Jaime Byrom, chairman of FIFA's ticketing agency MATCH, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that category-4 ticket holders would be required to provide proof of residence upon collection.

For international fans, the tickets range in price from 80 dollars for a category 3 ticket for a group match, to 900 dollars for a category 1 ticket to the final in Soccer City, Soweto.

Each fan may apply for a maximum four tickets per match for up to seven matches, or four team-specific ticket series of up to seven games for a chosen team.

Overseas fans have to pay their tickets in dollars. South Africans will pay for theirs in rands at a very favourable exchange rate of 1 dollar to 7 rands (the current exchange rate is 1 dollar: 9.8 rands).

In a World Cup first, FIFA will hand out 120,000 free category four tickets to South Africans, of which 40,000 will be given to the workers that helped build the new stadiums. (dpa)