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FIFA said yesterday that it was investigating why thousands of seats were left empty for Uruguay’s World Cup match against Egypt in Ekaterinburg.
Jose Gimenez proved Uruguay’s saviour with a 90th-minute winner in a poor match played at a stadium with almost one in five seats unfilled.
A Fifa spokesman said that the official attendance was 27,015, against a capacity of 33,061.
“The fact that the actual attendance is lower than the number of allocated tickets can be due to different factors, including ‘no shows’ on match day, which Fifa is currently investigating.”
Football’s world governing body are also looking to punish the head of the Palestinian Football Association for urging fans to burn photos of Lionel Messi if Argentina played controversial a World Cup warm-up game in Jerusalem.
Fifa says it opened disciplinary proceedings against PFA president Jibril Rajoub because of comments “widely reported in the media.”
Argentina cancelled the match, with Argentinian FA vice-president Hugo Moyano saying that it was “the right decision. It wasn’t worth it. So many people are being killed. As human beings, we can’t accept it.”