A plethora of applicants jammed the Internet site selling tickets for football's 2002 World Cup finals ahead of the deadline for the first release of seats.
Eight million Internet users besieged the www.Fifaworldcup.com site on Sunday alone in a bid to register before applications were ended at 1500 GMT on Monday, FIFA, football's international governing body said.
In the final hours, it was nearly impossible to register for tickets, users in several countries said.
"I tried several times an hour for eight hours on Monday, but nothing. I guess I left it too late," said Sydney-based soccer fan David Burton.
A FIFA spokesman in Zurich admitted "the servers were quite simply unable to process more than 20,000 inquiries per hour."
"Many ticket series have been over subscribed and many applicants will be unsuccessful," the official site warned readers after it stopped taking orders. Applications by post had to be received by the same deadline.
The World Cup ticket marketing has been one of the biggest international sales ever conducted by Internet. The FIFA spokesman said demand reached "incredible heights."
The spokesman said most inquiries have come from Japan and South Korea, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Hong Kong. But there were applications from more than 120 countries
A random computerised draw for the first release of tickets will be held on May 15 and the results announced the following day.
The World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan start with an opening match in Seoul on May 31 next year and end with the final in Yokohama, Japan on June 30, 2002.
But only a fraction of the total 3.179 million tickets for the 64 matches were involved in the first general international sale.
Jaime Byrom, of FIFA ticketing agent Byrom Plc, said 2.9 million of the tickets would be sold at various times. Some 1.45 million would be sold in South Korea and Japan, 580,000 through national associations, about 250,000 on general international sale and the rest to commercial affiliatesand partners.
He said that if all tickets are sold $441.4 million would be raised in revenue. This would be "significantly higher" than the 1998 finals in France, Byrom said.
Following an international controversy over the way the bulk of tickets for France '98 tournament went to the French market, FIFA appointed Byrom as special ticket agents for this tournament.
FIFA has said this new system used is the fairest ever. Through the online applications, fans could apply for tickets for one match, or to follow one country throughout the tournament or for all the matches at one venue.
-AFP