The seats are distributed on a 70:30 ratio, with 70 per cent allocated on a loyalty basis based on how many matches fans have been to, and 30 per cent via a random ballot.

The FA was originally allocated only eight per cent of tickets per game for all England matches in Germany. The FA lobbied FIFA for extra and were informed at the end of last week that we have secured a small number of extra tickets for our group games.

All of these extra tickets are going directly to englandfans.

Only once the breakdown of the overall allocation was confirmed were we able to announce the results of the ballot. We did this within 24 hours of receiving the information and are now in the process of emailing or sending letters to all our members to let them know whether they have been successful or not.

The FA would like to accommodate every single englandfans member with their request, but the demand is huge and massively exceeds our supply.

Ian Murphy, The FA's Head of Customer Relations and englandfans, told TheFA.com: "With such a low allocation there were always going to be a number of our members disappointed. The tremendous support received by the England team is the best in the world and the desire to follow the team at major tournaments is unmatched in world football.

"The system we have in place to allocate tickets was put in place prior to the last World Cup after consultation with supporters. The aim is to reward loyalty as much as possible, while giving younger fans an opportunity to follow the team.

"We have already been given an additional allocation of tickets, and continue to make the organisers aware that we will accept additional tickets that may become available before the start of the World Cup."

Kevin Miles, International Coordinator for the Football Supporters Federation, said: "Having a loyalty system as the basis for distribution is the fairest system you can get.

"Disappointed fans know that the people who received tickets have attended more England games than themselves and the ballot system gives all englandfans a chance to get hold of tickets.

"I sympathise with the fans who will be doubtless disappointed that they have missed out but all members of the scheme knew the rules before they signed up.

"Problems have arisen from the fact that so few tickets have been allocated to The FA overall and England's group games are in the three smallest German venues."

The FA constantly asks fans for feedback and the vast majority believe this method is the fairest way of distributing the allocation.

The FA capped membership at 25,000 some time ago to allow all englandfans a fair chance of getting tickets via the loyalty system or ballot. We have made it very clear from the outset how the system works to all of our members.