The Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow will host 2018 World Cup final and opening game

FIFA have revealed a 43 per cent decrease in ticket requests for the 2018 World Cup in Russia compared to the 2014 finals in Brazil.

Football's governing body confirmed on Thursday that a total of 3,496,204 tickets had been requested for the 2018 tournament when the first sales period ended at 10am.

A total of 6,164,682 requests for tickets for the Brazil finals had been received when the initial application period for that event ended just over four years ago.

That represents a total drop of 2,668,478 requests and, according to FIFA, about 70 per cent of requests for tickets so far have come from the host nation.

FIFA also revealed it has received a total of 300,000 ticket requests for the final and 150,000 requests for the opening match - both games will be played at the 81,000-capacity Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

Nine spots are yet to be filled at the tournament. with 23 nations having booked their spots, the majority of those over the last couple of weeks.

Ticket requests from the USA are in the top 10 but their team failed to qualify for the tournament in midweek

English requests for tickets do not rank in the top 10, with Russia's total followed by requests from Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Egypt and Poland as well as two countries who failed to qualify - China and the United States.

Sales for next summer's tournament will re-open on November 16 with a first-come, first-served real-time sales period - that phase will run for less than a fortnight.