The opening match of the World Cup knockout rounds attracted the lowest crowd of six games staged so far at Nelson Mandela Bay stadium.
FIFA declared an attendance of just 30,597 for Uruguay's 2-1 victory over South Korea on Saturday - meaning almost 12,000 seats were empty. More than half the corporate hospitality suites appeared unused.
The 42,486-capacity Port Elizabeth stadium, which was built specially for the World Cup, also was not filled for the five group-stage matches it hosted.
Its biggest crowd was 38,294 for Germany's 1-0 loss against Serbia. The previous smallest of 31,513 also featured South Korea, when it beat Greece 2-0 in a Saturday lunchtime kickoff on the second day of the tournament.
Nelson Mandela Bay also will stage a quarterfinal next Friday afternoon - potentially pitting Brazil against the Netherlands - and the third-place match on July 10.
On Saturday morning, FIFA said that 5,000 tickets were still available for the Uruguay-South Korea match, suggesting that at least 7,000 ticket-holders did not show up for a game that began on a sunny afternoon before rain started falling at halftime.
In addition, 1,700 tickets were available for the second-round match involving United States and Ghana on Saturday night at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg.
``It's true the next game will have a number of empty seats, but that happens everywhere - not just in South Africa,'' FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said at a news briefing. ``It happens at all World Cups and we're beyond the ticketing level of Germany in 2006.''
FIFA has said its research revealed the no-shows for many games are because of foreign fans not traveling to South Africa to collect the tickets they paid for, local public transport problems and group sales tickets not being used.
Cut-price bulk sales were offered to South African businesses and government departments to distribute among workers after international sales fell below expectations.
Empty seats could become a bigger problem in the knockout rounds, because many fans purchase ``team specific'' tickets to follow their team, but if the draw doesn't play out as expected - such as England playing its second-round match in Bloemfontein instead of Rustenburg - many tickets need to be re-allotted.
The empty seats do not impact on the World Cup organizing committee's finances because it has already received above-budget revenues from agency MATCH which has the exclusive rights from FIFA to sell and distribute tickets.
