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FIFA probe Paraguay ticket sales claim
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-06-06 09:48

FIFA has launched an investigation into claims that World Cup tickets designated officially to Paraguay have been put on general sale.

General secretary Urs Linsi confirmed on Monday that following "rumours and reports", he had written to the Paraguay federation.

He said FIFA had also asked Ernst & Young, one of the world's leading audit and investigation companies, to compile a report.

Linsi said he did not know of any "hard evidence" to prove any wrongdoing but had launched an inquiry into the claims that official Paraguayan tickets had been offered to fans.

Speaking at a news conference after a meeting of FIFA's executive committee on Monday, Linsi said he was aware of the reports and rumours but refused to give any further credence to them than that.

The tickets are said to be for two of Paraguay's matches; against England in Frankfurt on June 10 and Sweden in Berlin on June 15.

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Paraguay coach Anibal Ruizhe, captain Carlos Gamarra and striker Roque Santa Cruz declined to comment when they were asked about the ticket probe at a training session on Monday.

"We are here to talk about football and play football. I am not going to speak about such a matter," Ruizhe told reporters.

Linsi said he had no more reason to believe that the claims about Paraguayan official tickets were true than he had when similar stories surfaced in recent weeks about official tickets designated to the Ivory Coast.

He said that following an investigation those claims were proved to be without any grounds, or solid evidence, at all.

"We have no idea how long this investigation will take," he told reporters. "With the Ivory Coast, we found no evidence at all at the end of the day."

German World Cup organisers have been very strict in their insistence on controlling ticket allocations tightly and demanding that every ticket has the name of the purchaser printed on it for security reasons.

Tickets sent to official national federations may not have personal names on them but 'guest of' instead.

Some media reports suggested as many as 2,000 tickets, allocated to the Paraguayans, had gone missing.