It would have been "irresponsible to introduce" an imperfect system at the World Cup, he said.

Another system backed by the Italian association involving camera technology "intended to resolve the question of whether the ball crosses the line or not" at pitch level was being investigated.

"Of course, again and again we have situations like this _ we're open to reviewing technological supports," Siegler said. But, "implementation will depend on something being absolutely, 100 percent reliable."

As for off-field officials making decisions, FIFA's position is unequivocal.

"Video evidence _ quite clearly, no," Siegler said.

The World Cup's official web site www.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com had experienced more than half the traffic in the first week in Germany as it did during the entire 2002 tournament, Siegler said, with a daily average of 5 million 'unique users' making a total 1.2 billion page views in the first week.

The total page views in 2002 was 2 billion.

The online interest could be enhanced because tickets are so scarce.

Organizers said 1.494 million tickets had been sold for the first 29 matches, more than 99 percent of capacity.

Germany 2006 vice president Horst Schmidt said organizers had originally budgeted for 95 percent capacity in their estimated net yield of euro200 million (US$251 million).