At least 1,500 of the Paraguayan FA's allocation of 3,300 tickets for the Group B opener have disappeared amid claims that they have been passed on to black-market ticket agencies in Britain and Europe.

Four travel companies in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion were chosen to sell most of the tickets.

But one of the firms Siboney said that while they had received between 200 and 300 tickets for Paraguay's other games, against Sweden and Trinidad et Tobago, it got just 40 for Saturday's fixture in Frankfurt.

"Someone obviously decided that doing something would be good for him without taking anyone else into account," Luis Ullon, Siboney's sales manager, told the Observer on Sunday.

Ester Mendoza, sales manager at Amitour, another of the Asuncion firms, said the Paraguayan FA had offered no explanation for the shortfall of tickets.

"They just told us they were sold out. We have no way of knowing what really happened, but it's strange that with the other two we got all the tickets we wanted but not with the England game."

Noone from the Paraguayan FA was available for comment.