Speaking at a media event arranged to assess the way the tournament has progressed and to look forward to next year's World Cup, Danny Jordaan, CEO of the FIFA Organising Committee, declared disappointment by the way that two specific incidents of crime had been reported in recent days.

According to reports over the weekend, Egypt and Brazil were targets of theft at their hotels, but Jordaan downplayed the incident, saying it could happen anywhere.

"I have been to every World Cup and every Confederations Cup since 1994 and the level of incidents in this tournament is no different to any of the others," he said.

"As far as teams are concerned, there were two mentions of money loss, that's the best way to describe it, the circumstance of which is now being looked at. Now I can tell you that players and teams lose money under different circumstances all the time.

"Whether that can constitute to a major security breach for the teams, I won't know. I would find it ridiculous if anyone concluded on that basis.

"Thefts from hotels happened in Germany. You can't leave it (money) on the table and say you were robbed."

South Africa's national deputy police minister Fikile Mbalula echoed Jordaan's sentiments, adding that everything had gone off smoothly.

"The security has been generally very good throughout the Confederations Cup and we are quite encouraged," he said. "Of course we are ready for the World Cup.

"There have been no major incidents apart from the incident with the Egyptian team, which is being investigated."

Jordaan also called on journalists not to "sensationalise" and to report the facts, adding: "Judge us on our track record, not on what you think might have happened.

"We are very serious are about security issues."

The tournament, which is seen as a precursor to South Africa's ability to host one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, concluded its first round yesterday, with Brazil and the United States joining Spain and hosts South Africa in the semi-finals.

Looking back at the biggest challenges that organisers have experienced thus far, Jordaan said: "There are some areas that we need to look at, two specifically which are additional measures that we have brought in for this tournament.

"One is the introduction of the park and ride service. It's a new addition to South African sport for fans and secondly, we have to work harder on getting our fans into the stadiums early.

"So those are the two matters that we've noted and we'll have to deal with for the World Cup.

"But overall we are all happy as we reach the end of the group stages and look forward to the semi-finals and final in a very, very happy mood."

Another fear in the opening few days of the competition was over-crowded numbers, which have considerably increased as the tournament has gone on.

"We've now sold 492,000 tickets for this tournament, which is 2,000 more than what was sold in Germany.

"We expect that the two semi-finals and final will take us close to or maybe over 500,000 tickets sold.

"That will place us at an average-per-match higher than Korea/Japan, which was 34,000, higher than France, which was 30,000 average and we may be higher than Germany, which was 37,000."

Asked whether there may be empty stadiums come the World Cup, he added: "When it comes to ticket sales there is no comparison between the Confederations Cup and World Cup. We have no doubt that the World Cup will be sold out and this is based on the interest that we have had thus far.

"At this stage, the final for the World Cup is oversubscribed by 3000 percent, 22 out of the 64 matches are already sold out, so I have no doubt that the World Cup is a different proposition and will be a sell-out."