09/07/2008 14:38

Johannesburg - South Africans will be able to pay for their 2010 Soccer World Cup tickets in rands, Fifa said on Wednesday, reversing an earlier decision to sell all but the lowest grade tickets in US dollars.

Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke said this decision was reached at a recent meeting of its ticketing sub-committee.

Originally, it was planned that only Category D tickets, those in the least attractive parts of the stadiums, would be available in rands.

The top three categories were only going to be available in dollars and sold on the internet to those proffering a credit card number.

Valcke, however, was not able to give any guarantee that South Africans would be able to buy tickets in all categories before they were sold on the worldwide market.

"This is something we are still working on," he said.

"But we do accept the fact we need to give access to South Africans first."

Valcke said tickets sales were being held up as Fifa awaited seating plans from the 10 venues.

Fifa are to hand out 120 000 free Category D tickets to people from poor areas, they announced last November.