Fifa have blamed ticketing policy for the crowd problems that occured at the Nigeria-North Korea World Cup warm-up.

Sixteen people, including two police officers, were injured when a stampede occurred at the Johannesburg ground where fans were trying to get in to watch Nigeria take on North Korea in a pre-World Cup friendly - a match where the 10,000 tickets were free.

The incident happened just days before the start of the global spectacle, set to kick off when hosts South Africa face Mexico at Soccer City.

The world governing body has often been criticised in the build-up to the tournament for not making tickets more easily accessible for locals, most of whom live in poverty and do not have the luxury of the internet - Fifa's preferred method of selling tickets.

Secretary general Jerome Valcke said that the happenings in Tembisa township, east of the city, proved that the organisation had the correct policy

He said: "We have been criticised very often for not distributing tickets on the matchday at the stadium.

"What happened there when there was distribution of tickets on the matchday proves we are right to say that you should never distribute tickets at the stadium on the matchday.

"It's one of our principles and we will keep this principle during the World Cup."

Valcke also assured sceptics that such an incident will not occur at a Fifa-run game.

He continued: "Also, in terms of organisation, please be sure that the level of organisation we have when we organise a game is definitely higher than the one we have seen here."

There were also fears of similar chaos occurring at England's friendly with local outfit Platinum Stars in Rustenburg today, where the ticket distribution method was similar.

But the sedate nature of their entrance into the 20,000-capacity Moruleng stadium was in contrast to the scenes in Tembisa.

In taking the precaution of only distributing 14,000 tickets, the Football Association were hoping to limit the potential for problems.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter also insisted there was not much his organisation could have done about yesterday, moving quickly to promise fans of a safe World Cup.

"I am sure and you are sure that this is like an alarm clock, but this will not happen in any match of the World Cup, of that you can be assured," he said.

"I just want to confirm the principle in the organisation of any sporting competition, in this case football.

"We are organisers of a competition and being the organisers of a competition, we have to take the adequate steps for security.

"But in no way does the football organisation, being local, regional, national or international, have any police force or military force to intervene in security.

"This is always the matter of the state where the sport event is played.

"But football has to take the steps to make sure that these organisations are involved to ensure the minimum of security for any competition.

"This is a principle we have to repeat, that FIFA has no police force. They cannot even take out a spectator from a stadium, it's not possible."

Valcke also hit out at the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), who had claimed earlier in the day that their choices of venue for the clash were limited.

He added: "Just to be clear, we control the 10 Fifa World Cup stadiums.

"There is not a single team, including Bafana Bafana - they were looking to play in the different cities, we said 'no, you can't use any of our World Cup stadiums' and this has been for around 10 days now.

"Any of the cities, if you think Newlands in Cape Town, the Orlando Stadium where they played rugby, etc. we have never said that you can't play there

"It's only in our stadiums where we have said you can't use them."