Rio De Janeiro: FIFA said today that it rejected about 50 fake tickets for the opening World Cup match in Sao Paulo between host Brazil and Croatia.

FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil said the tickets for yesterday's game were "an example of real professional fakes, not the poor imitations made in a copying machine." And he's guessing there are more. "Even for us, it's extremely complicated to see if it's a fake ticket or a real ticket," Weil said. "We need to communicate to the fans that there are tickets going around that are fake tickets that are extremely difficult if not impossible to recognise."