2014 FIFA World Cup Tickets Go On Sale

Tickets for the 2014 FIFA World Cup went on sale on Tuesday and the world governing body for football is expecting high demand similar to the 2006 staging of the event in Germany.

Fans around the world can now visit FIFA's website to apply for their tickets to the month-long spectacle in Brazil next year. Ticket costs start at $90 for the first-round matches, while the tickets for the final at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro range in price from $440 to $990 each.

FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil said in an interview that they are expecting high demand for tickets, similar to that of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

According to FIFA, there were approximately seven applicants for each ticket in 2006, which was witnessed by more than 3.3 million fans. In the 2010 edition in South Africa, the demand was significantly lower during the first ticketing phase, but almost 2 million tickets were sold to the public that year.

"It's always difficult to predict," Weil said. "But I truly believe that it will be more toward to what happened in Germany than in South Africa. We believe there will be a huge demand for this World Cup. But again, we will see after the opening."

Fans planning to purchase a ticket will not need to rush though. The first phase will not follow a first-come, first-serve system. All ticket applications made before Oct. 10 will undergo a random selection draw if the demand is higher than the total amount of tickets.

The leftover tickets will be sold starting Nov. 5 on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once the World Cup draw is done and the venues and dates of each match are determined, another phase will start on Dec. 8 - almost six months before the tournament kicks off on June 12, 2014 in Sao Paulo.

While FIFA is expecting high demand, Weil is confident that the ticketing system in place is capable of handling the expected huge number of requests for tickets.

"We can do a lot of simulations but the biggest test will come tomorrow when it all starts. But we are confident that things will work," said Weil on Monday before the tickets went on sale.