The England Head Coach is not satisfied with the allocation of about 3,000 tickets per group match, particularly when there could be as many as 100,000 England fans travelling to Germany.

"It will be a big party for one month," Eriksson told German tourist industry executives. "You will see a lot of English people in Germany next summer. What we need is more tickets, because I think there will be more English people than from any other country."

The German Ambassador to the UK was present and Sven made his feelings clear on this subject - a feeling that The FA have repeated many times since the announcement of the allocations.

The issue is so important to Sven that, given the chance, he will broach the issue with FIFA President Sepp Blatter.

"If I bump into him in a corridor somewhere I will ask him to listen to the pleas from The FA and give England and our fans more tickets if he can," Sven added. 

Currently the only way that The FA will receive more than its 8 per cent allocation is through returns from England’s group-stage opponents.

Paraguay are unlikely to take a large contingent of fans to Frankfurt for the first match, but Trinidad & Tobago may rally enthusiasm from all over the world to take up most of their allocation in Nuremberg and Sweden are unlikely to return tickets.

World Cup organisers yesterday revealed that one million tickets were ordered within 12 hours of going on sale on Monday, with 90 per cent of the demand coming from Europe.