THOUSANDS of England fans will watch their team play Paraguay in Frankfurt today with black market tickets originally allocated to South American football authorities.

Highly organised groups of ticket touts from England, distributing business cards and equipped with German mobile phones, were operating on the streets of Frankfurt yesterday .

The touts were asking up to €600 (£413) yesterday for tickets with a face value of €35 (£24) and claimed that their supply came largely from South America or, in some cases, from the pool of tickets allocated to sponsors.

The elaborate and supposedly secure ticket allocation system devised by Fifa, football’s governing body, is in disarray and many genuine supporters have been unable to obtain tickets legally.

Fifa has already come under fire for initially allocating only 3,300 tickets to the Football Association and for locating England’s qualifying games in some of the smaller stadiums.

This month Fifa had to announce an inquiry into allegations that tickets given to the Paraguayan football authority had subsequently gone on general sale. There is also growing tension between police and Fifa over plans to require every ticketholder to undergo an identity check at the stadium entrance.

Achim Thiel, Frankfurt’s police president, has admitted that only about 10 per cent of people attending the game are likely to have their tickets checked to make sure they are the accredited buyer.

The touts were doing a thriving trade among the estimated 40,000 English fans who were flooding into the city.

One group used German “runners” to distribute business cards printed with the message “World Cup tickets wanted” and listing four telephone numbers. But the man who answered in a London accent had tickets to sell. He asked for €1,200 (£826) for a pair but agreed to €1,000 (£688).

He said: “You won’t have any trouble with these, they’re federation tickets. They’ve come out of South American football associations and they are official tickets. Eeverybody knows that the security system is unworkable.”

The man was trading near Frankfurt’s main railway station. Another group of touts from Liverpool used a man in a German football shirt carrying a sign as a lure, saying he wanted to buy tickets.

A group of Merseysiders standing nearby stepped in when anyone inquired about buying tickets.

One said: “We have Category Four tickets, that’s restricted view, for €600 (£413) each and the price is only going one way, up. There are very few tickets around. If you want a pair for the [England v] Sweden game they’re already selling at €3,000 (£2,066).

“We can’t haggle, we’ve had to pay a lot of money for these from official sources.”

Kevin Miles of the Football Supporters’ Federation, which is running a “fans’ embassy” in Frankfurt, said there was little to be gained in turning away supporters who had paid inflated prices to see their team.