Over 97% of the tickets available for the 2010 World Cup have now been sold. By the time this article is published it could also reach 98% and we fully expect to be able to write in a few days that all tickets are sold, so we are not even going to tell you to rush out right now if you haven't got one.

The opening match, the two semi-finals and the final are sold out. There are still tickets for the third and fourth play-off, traditionally a game where you get big teams and a surprise to us that it isn't sold out.

So, has it been a failure? Simple answer is no. South Africa has done better than Germany in so many ways and it is also about to match Germany in another.

"We are getting very close to a 97 per cent average attendance, something which corresponds to the figures of Germany in 2006," said FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke.

We are not knocking Germany - it was a great tournament, but Brazil will beat records created by South Africa in 2014 and we have no doubt whoever wins the bid for 2018 will also beat all records - the World Cup just keeps getting bigger.