Hundreds of empty seats at World Cup's second match - despite FIFA claiming ground almost full

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South Korea came from 1-0 down to beat Czech Republic 2-1 in Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco in the early hours of Friday morning.

But despite the tournament being just a day old, the Estadio Akron appeared to have swathes of empty seats following rows of high ticket prices.

The attendance was announced as 44,985, just 679 less than full capacity but large chunks of red could be seen dotted around the ground especially throughout the VIP section.

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The more sparse areas of the stadium appeared to be in sections where ticket prices are said to have ranged between $400 (£298) for the cheapest and $5,000 (£3,730) for corporate hospitality.

It comes after it emerged FIFA's ticketing practices are to be investigated by prosecutors in the US.

The attorneys generals of New York and New Jersey insist the governing body must face a probe over allegations of "artificially inflating prices" and "misleading fans" over the sale of tickets.

It was reported that fans may have been misled about the locations of the seats they were purchasing and FIFA’s public statements and ticket releases possibly contributing to soaring prices.

It comes after the controversial FIFA President Gianni Infantino claimed in April that there had been 500 million ticket requests, in contrast to 50 million for the last two combined.

Tickets for the final were released on FIFA's official "resale/exchange marketplace" website, with four seats available at $2,299,998.85 (roughly £1.7m each).

FIFA does not control the asking prices on the resale website, but takes a 15% fee from both the seller and buyer of such tickets.

Substitute Oh Hyeon-Gu gave South Korea their winning start as they came from behind to win 2-1 against Czech Republic, who are playing in their first World Cup since 2006.

Oh struck 11 minutes from time after Hwang In-Beom’s moment of magic had cancelled out Czech captain Ladislav Krejci’s header.

One fan took to social media to write: "It looked like empty seats were far more than [the attendance], I don't trust what FIFA is reporting."

Another said: "Korea v Czech has been a cracking game of football. A real shame that FIFA greed has left loads of seats empty. Sensible pricing would have meant locals could have attended and experienced the World Cup."