By Jason Hughes, PA International, Yokohama

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Thousands of England fans are facing a battle to pick up the remaining tickets for Friday's mouth-watering clash with Brazil.

FIFA yesterday put 3,000 extra tickets on sale on their website (www.fifatickets.com) for the quarter-final match in Shizuoka.

The English Football Association have also requested another 1,000 tickets for distribution to their team's supporters.

FIFA director of communications Keith Cooper said: "We cannot say who the tickets have been taken up by so far, but the Japanese population is in prime position, which is a privilege enjoyed by any host nation.

"I do not know how many are left, but the internet remains the only avenue at this stage to buy the tickets that are left.

"At the moment we are doing our best to get tickets to England fans but that is not structurally very easy."

As a result, it is feared many English fans may take illegal routes to ensure they see their country's most eagerly-awaited match in years.

"To completely eliminate the black market for tickets from a event of this magnitude is never going to happen," said Cooper.

"We have to do just try our best to try and get rid of it as much as possible.

"But compared to 1998, there is a huge improvement and we hope to make even more improvement for 2006."

Meanwhile FIFA has jumped to the defence of Manchester-based company Byrom after they were blamed for a block of empty seats at Japan's historic second-round tie against Turkey two days ago.

Japan's World Cup organisers JAWOC issued a press release immediately after the match - the country's first in the last 16 of the finals - to deny responsibility for the "unacceptable mistake".

"It was a stab in the heart for the people of Japan," said JAWOC tournament director Junji Ogura. "I am very angry about this."

JAWOC claim the empty seats, around 600, came about as a result of Byrom wrongly labelling them as "killed" - restricted-viewing seating which is not sold as part of the normal allocation.

However FIFA insist JAWOC double checked the seating plans too late.

Cooper said: "David Will (chairman of World Cup ticketing sub-committee) wishes to express his astonishment at the press release from JAWOC, which blamed the unacceptable situation exclusively on Byrom.

"It was entirely due to delay in receiving information. When it was received, it was too late for some of those tickets to be sold."

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