First, some credit where credit's due. The Football Association has worked pretty tirelessly to secure as many tickets for England fans as possible. There was another scrap of good news today - an extra 580 tickets for members of the official supporters' club to bring England's allocation for Sunday's match against Ecuador to 4,200.
But it's still pretty small beer. Stuttgart's Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion is one of the tournament's largest, with a saleable capacity of around 45,000. Local police are forecasting there will be 12,000 Ecuador supporters and 30,000 England fans in the stadium - which means that a huge proportion of fans will either have obtained their tickets in the global internet ballot, or more likely paid touts upwards of £400 for their seat.
It cannot be said often enough - it is the scandal of the tournament. With 1 million of the 3 million seats going to sponsors and corporate hospitality, the loyal fan is either missing out - or having to dig deeper and deeper into ever more elastic pockets.
Kevin Miles, international coordinator of the Football Supporters Federation, suggested to me this week that official allocations to competing nations should be increased from 8% to at least 15%, but with conditions attached to ensure that they are distributed to genuine fans on a loyalty basis.
The FA's system of distributing tickets to members of englandfans seems a reasonably fair one - with 70% distributed on a loyalty basis, the remaining 30% on a random basis. The problem is that the FA just does not have enough to distribute, so fantastically loyal supporters have felt justifiably let down.
There has been political support for the fans this week from Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, who said she sympathised with their plight and welcomed Fifa's intention to review the ticketing system.
All well and good ... but perhaps there could also be a review of the number of government ministers who have considered it essential to be in attendance for England's World Cup matches. Fair enough for Ms Jowell and Richard Caborn, the sports minister, to have been on hand. At least it's a departmental responsibility for them.
But is it really necessary for three government ministers to be in the stands for the clash against Ecuador? Mr Caborn, again, and Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister responsible for policing, might just be able to make plausible cases for attending. But Geoff Hoon, the non-cabinet ranking minister for Europe? It must beat those trips to Basra and Baghdad he used to endure.
