COPA America organizers are worried about ticket sales for the two matches in Belo Horizonte and said Wednesday that only 65 percent of all the tickets to the soccer tournament have been sold, a figure that is below expectations.

Organizers said there have been slow sales for the match between Bolivia and Venezuela on June 22 and the match between Ecuador and Japan on June 24, both in Belo Horizonte.

Brazilian media say less than 3,000 tickets have been sold for the two matches at the Mineirao Stadium. Organizers did not confirm the figure. However, organizers say Saturday’s match between Argentina and Colombia in Salvador is sold out.

More than 1 million tickets have been put on sale, and the target is to sell 70 percent of them, said Agberto Guimaraes, the director of operations for Copa America.

“If we look at the whole, we are moving toward successful sales. In every product you have items that are highly valued and some that do not draw the same interest,” Guimaraes told journalists at the Morumbi stadium, where host Brazil will open Copa America against Bolivia on Friday. “We hope that from then onward, with the ball on the pitch, there is more interest for those two matches.”

To avoid empty seats, Guimaraes said organizers are in contact with the local government about the possibility of having school children fill some of them.(SD-Agencies)