World Cup chiefs set to sue

World Cup officials today confirmed they are poised to sue Manchester agency Byrom over alleged delays in producing the tournament's tickets, which they say is costing them around £500,000 a game in lost revenue.

Even at Japan's opening game against Belgium yesterday some sections of the ground remained empty despite huge public demand. Fans outside the ground protested about the chaotic ticketing arrangements.

Their anger has been intensified after a website created for last-minute ticket sales crashed because it was being swamped. Byrom also handled the actual printing of the tickets by licensing the job out to another, unknown, British company.

There is anger that Byrom and Fifa have not come up with a workable plan to re-sell tickets not taken up by some participating countries. There is also the suggestion that the allocations of tickets handed out to some of the World Cup's 15 corporate sponsors-have not all been taken up. Japan's prime minister Junichiro Koizumi has instructed his sports minister to make a formal inquiry to Fifa about why seats remain unfilled despite overwhelming demand.

The Korean government has launched its own inquiry. Football Supporters Association coordinator Kevin Miles today criticised Fifa for presiding over the system. "It will be sickening if there are empty seats on Friday," he said. "You can never have enough ticketsfor England v Argentina." However, there will be many empty seats because the Sapporo Dome where the match is being played has had its 42,000 capacity reduced to 35,000 for the World Cup.

This is because some seats in a stadium designed to show baseball are deemed to have views too poor for football games. English fans have said they would rather pay to have a restricted view than no view at all. In Sapporo today hundreds of England fans are still seeking elusive tickets.