Want Brazil World Cup 2014 tickets? Clock’s ticking, odds slim

If you’re an American chasing tickets for the World Cup beginning June 12, your time is running short, and you have to go through Brasilia and FIFA, not necessarily in that order.

Brasilia is the Brazilian capital, where the government oversees handling of visa applications. In fact, Brazil has set up a separate visa category for World Cup visitors, presumably simplifying red tape that has sometimes complicated travel between the U.S. and Brazil. But to get one of those visas, you must first show that you have tickets to one of the competition’s 64 matches in 12 cities.

FIFA, the World Cup’s organizing body, has about 3 million tickets to sell. It began taking ticket requests (also known as applications) on Aug. 12, 2013, before the 32 first-round pairings were known.

A second phase for ticket applications followed Dec. 8-Jan. 30, and fans of specific teams had until Feb. 8 to request seats from a pool of tickets reserved for each team (8% per game). But those phase two applicants won’t learn their fate until ticket-lottery winners are picked (via “electronic draw”) and notified sometime before March 11. (About 80% of the ticket-seekers are Brazilians, FIFA officials say. )

For those who haven’t entered the ticket fray yet, two chances remain: You can order from the dwindling supply of tickets during the first-come, first-served phase March 12 to April 1; or wait until the “last-minute” phase from April 15 through the day of the Final, July 13.

FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil has estimated that requests for tickets “are at least 10 times more than the inventory we have available.” (In the second phase alone, FIFA tallied 3.5-million ticket requests.)

The competition begins with the June 12 opener in São Paulo and ends with the July 13 final in Rio de Janeiro.

Tickets for foreigners come in three price categories, with individual matches priced at $90 to $990 per person, excluding ticket delivery charges. (There’s a more affordable fourth category reserved for Brazilian residents). Package deals allow fans to follow their chosen team through multiple matches or to attend only matches at a single venue. As of Feb. 12, tickets for the opening match and final had not been released.

[Correction, 3:30 p.m., Feb. 24: A previous version of this post said that FIFA doesn’t authorize any other company to sell World Cup ticket/travel packages. FIFA has authorized MATCH Hospitality to sell hospitality packages including tickets. MATCH Hospitality has authorized SportsMark as its sales agent in the U.S.]