Sports Updates

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<span style="color: #2e2e2e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 30.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Nearly three million tickets for Brazil FIFA World Cup 2014 sold to
date<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Local Organising Committee for the FIFA
World Cup™, chaired by Eugenio Figueredo, convened on Thursday in Sao
Paulo for its last meeting before the start of the tournament. The executives
received comprehensive reports on the preparations and expressed their
eagerness for the 20th edition of the FIFA World Cup™ to begin, with just seven
days to go before the opening match between hosts Brazil and Croatia at the
Arena de São Paulo on 12 June. The meeting was also attended by Brazil’s Sports
Minister Aldo Rebelo.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.75pt;">As a symbol of peace, Brazil and FIFA will
dedicate a special moment prior to the kick-off of the opening match. Following
the pre-match protocol and the coin toss, players and officials will meet
around the centre circle, with one team on each side. Three children, each
carrying a dove, will come on to the pitch and move to the middle of the centre
circle, where they will release the three doves into the sky. The symbol of
peace will mark the official opening of the 2014 FIFA World Cup™.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The huge global excitement is reflected by the
unprecedented number of ticket requests, with more than 11 million received to
date for about 3.1 million available tickets. To date, a total of 2,961,911
tickets have been sold, including more than 2.2 million directly via FIFA.com
to the general public. “For every fan, it is a dream to be able to experience
live a FIFA World Cup in the country of the only five-time world champions –
never before have we sold so many tickets directly to the general public, and
this was important to us. The opening match and the final were even
oversubscribed ten times. The long queues of people who turned up at the
ticketing centres early yesterday morning to buy World Cup tickets shows the
high level of interest that Brazilians and international fans have in the 2014
FIFA World Cup,” says FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Overall, 60% of the tickets were bought by
Brazilians and 40% by fans from the rest of the world. After hosts Brazil
(1,363,179), the USA leads the international pack with 196,838 tickets,
followed by Argentina (61,021), Germany (58,778), England (57,917), Colombia (54,477),
Australia (52,289), Chile (38,638), France (34,865) and Mexico (33,694).There
are a few tickets left for just 27 of the 64 matches: the opening match,
semi-finals and final are sold out. However, fans still on the lookout for
tickets should keep checking www.FIFA.com/tickets, as potential resales or
unpaid purchases mean that some tickets may go back on offer to the general
public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">FIFA is bearing the entire operational costs
for staging the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ amounting about USD two billion, with half
of this figure (USD one billion) being directly invested in the Brazilian
economy through the hiring of local services. This latter figure covers the
entire Local Organising Committee budget, team travel and lodging, TV
production costs, ticketing operations, accommodation, the IT solution and the
overall competitions management, i.e. the entire organisation of the matches,
plus refereeing and the marketing operations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chile will be the fourth FIFA World Cup™ team
to arrive in Brazil tonight, after Australia, Croatia and Iran. The last teams
to arrive will be Ghana, Korea Republic and Portugal on 11 June.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ will also
serve as a benchmark in the development of a new strategy in the fight against
doping, with the introduction of player biological profiling including blood
and urine samples for the first time at a FIFA World Cup™. Every single player
will be tested prior to the competition in addition to the routine anti-doping
tests taken during the competition. Read more details in the interview with
FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jiri Dvorak, and Martial Saugy, the
director of the laboratory in Lausanne in charge of the doping analysis for the
tournament, on FIFA.com.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The 20th FIFA World Cup™ in Brazil promises to
be a celebration of friendship and passion for the beautiful game. Recent
incidents of racism have emphasised the need for concrete action to tackle this
scourge of the game head on. The FIFA World Cup™, which will be viewed all over
the world, is the ideal platform from which to signal a clear rejection of any
form of discrimination. FIFA therefore launched a social media campaign today
inviting people around the world to unite against racism by posting messages
with the #saynotoracism hashtag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">“As the most popular sport in the world,
football is a powerful tool to spread the message that racism has no place in
sport, or in society at large. FIFA’s “Say No to Racism” campaign is our
commitment to drive racism from the game and to set an example of equality for
all to society,” said FIFA President Blatter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Nearly three million tickets for Brazil FIFA World Cup 2014 sold to date

Nearly three million tickets for Brazil FIFA World Cup 2014 sold to date The Local Organising Committee for the FIFA World Cup™, chaired...