Russians have submitted the highest number of applications, followed by fans from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, China, the United States, Columbia, Germany and the United Kingdom.

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Over 500,000 applications have been submitted on the first day FIFA began selling tickets for the World Cup 2018 due to be held in Russia, FIFA posted the information on its official website.

Over 50,000 fans applied for the World Cup’s final and nearly 40,000 for the opening match.

The tickets are to be sold in two phases. Sales phase 1 will last from September 14 to October 12, when fans can apply for tickets, but not all of them will be successful. Given the number of applications is more than the number of available tickets, the tickets will be allocated by a random selection draw process. Each fan will be notified of the outcome of their applications by 16 November 2017. Sales phase 2 will continue from November 16 to 28, during which tickets will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Eleven host cities will be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums located in the 11 above-mentioned cities across Russia.