But even this measure - designed to show hospitality to the tournament's guests and save the face of the hosts - has failed to stem growing concern about the lack of atmosphere during the opening matches of Asia's first World Cup finals. With the problem compounded by delays in the distribution of tickets, Japan and South Korea are now considering a giveaway of seats and a law suit against the British ticketing agency, Byrom, for empty stands, lost profits and an embarrassing lack of support at some games.

Fifa has called an emergency meeting and the two co-hosts have set up crisis teams to address the fiasco through such proposals as rent-a-crowd policies and increased on-the-day tickets sales. With tickets twice as expensive as during the last World Cup in France, part of the problem appears to be that people in South Korea - where baseball is the most popular sport - are unwilling to pay high prices to see the less-fancied nations. Even the four-time champions Brazil were unable to fill Ulsan's stadium for their game against Turkey yesterday.

Terrifed that the tournament could prove a damp squib with the eyes of the world upon it, the South Korean government has spent $800,000 (£547,000) over the past six months to establish groups of domestic supporters for each visiting team. But this has not prevented what the Korean organising committee described as "outstanding absences" in the opening matches. The 56,000-capacity stadium in Busan was less than half-full for the 2-2 draw between Paraguay and South Africa.

"Due to a glitch in ticket sales, massive numbers of seats were left empty in a series of games, causing an estimated 1bn won (£532,000) in losses per match," Shin Jung Sik, head of the Government Information Agency, was quoted as saying in a cabinet meeting.

In Japan, where wages are higher, money is not the problem. Yet, despite huge demand during advanced sales, large sections of the stadiums have been left empty. Although it has previously announced that all the games in Japan were sold out, the Japanese organising committee announced on Sunday that tickets are still available for first-round matches. "As one of the host regions, we have a duty to harshly denounce them [Byrom]. We may seek compensatory damages, if it's necessary," said Shiro Asano, the governor of Miyagi.

Fifa has already launched an investigation "If the figures are disappointing, there have been plenty of World Cups that have never been sold out," its spokesman Keith Cooper said. "Even at the Olympic Games the stadia are not always full. Some matches are more attractive than others." Byrom, the Manchester-based company in charge of international sales of 1.5m tickets and production of the remaining 1.7m tickets divided between the two co-hosts and Fifa, is believed to have suffered data production difficulties that led to delays.