Sepp Blatter wants Fifa to take charge of tickets in South Africa.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter says his organization should take over ticketing arrangements for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Blatter said in an interview published Sunday it would have been better if football's world governing body had organized ticket sales for the 2006 World Cup, rather than host country Germany.

This follows Blatter's criticisms of Germany's strict controls.

"It would probably have been better if we had taken over the ticket sales.

"The Germans have chosen a system that I don't understand at all," Blatter told the weekly NZZ am Sonntag.

Tickets are embedded with microchips and issued to individuals, who will face recognition scanners at the stadiums' turnstiles.

Blatter thinks the system is too intricate, but organizers say it is for security reasons.

The 3.3 million tickets will be personalized, creating the threat of long queues at the stadiums with organizers planning checks if the person with the ticket is the person on the ticket.

The idea is to eliminate stolen or counterfeit tickets, as well as keeping ticket brokers or others from inflating the price.

"We're just not making any progress with the German Football Association," Blatter said.

"In South Africa 2010 we'll take over the ticketing again," he added.

A lawsuit has been filed in Frankfurt by one ticket holder who bought his on eBay.

World Cup organizers, who have warned that sales on Internet sites could turn out to be fraudulent, have refused to put his name on the ticket, making it unusable.

Meanwhile, the head of the 2006 World Cup Organising Committee, Franz Beckenbauer, has countered criticism from Blatter about the lottery-style ticket draw for this summer's finals.

"Criticism like that irritates me," Beckenbauer said at the World Cup workshop in Dusseldorf on Monday.

"We knew that the ticketing would be the biggest problem but there have already been 20 meetings with Fifa.

"Fifa always knew what was going on. That is why I find it a bit surprising what the Fifa president is saying."