A decision by the football World Cup organisers to exempt more than a million match tickets allocated to sponsors and national football federations from their data information regulations has come in for sharp criticism.

It has emerged that the 550,000 tickets going to sponsors and 470,000 for the national football federations participating at next year's World Cup in Germany will not carry individual names.

This is in marked contrast to tickets sold to the general public, which carry the name of the purchaser and personal information and is at present non-transferable without prior permission.

Experts fear the policy makes a mockery of security measures and could lead to match tickets ending up on the black market.

Frank Scheulen, spokesman for a special police department coordinating efforts to combat hooliganism, told Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper: "This is not making our work any easier."

Meanwhile, Carel Mohn of the Federal Consumer Protection Agency, said: "It is extraordinary that two standards are being applied. With the fans, all data protection reservations are brushed aside, but with the sponsors the procedure is different."

Fan representative Michael Gabriel, of the Fan Project Coordination Centre, said: "This unfair treatment is a shock."

World Cup organising committee vice-president Horst R. Schmidt confirmed that the tickets allocated to sponsors and national federations do not carry individual names but merely the names of companies or the federations.

The tickets sold to the general public carry the names of the purchaser and contain a computer chip with data relating to the ticket holder.

Purchasers had to provide the information as part of the Internet sale procedure. The organising committee had justified this measure for security reasons and to prevent ticket touting.