December 13th, 2009 by Andrew Thomson

Despite receiving over 17,000 tickets to the group stages of the World Cup finals, it is unlikely that any of the tickets will find their way to the North Korean public, nor will North Koreans be allowed to travel to South Africa to see their team play Brazil, Portugal or the Ivory Coast.

Around 80,000 North Koreans regularly attend football matches in the territory, but it is thought that only a few officials will actually make the trip to South Africa. The rest of the tickets will most probably end up on the secondary ticketing market.