Prosecutors have searched the Bremen offices of a CTS Eventim Germany ticket agency in an investigation into how tens of thousands of tickets for the 2006 World Cup ended up on the black market. CTS Eventim has confirmed the search by Munich prosecutors. A spokesman said the visit had come as a complete surprise.

'We will be doing everything to help clear up the matter,' a company spokesman said.

Public prosecutors in Munich have also looked at documents at the German football federation DFB. According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung report on the Sept. 17 raid a company spokesman said it had come as a complete surprise.

"We will be doing everything to help clear up the matter," the spokesman told the German newspaper.

Pollstar noted that Eventim held the exclusive right to sell the tickets for the World Cup finals, which were staged in Germany, an event that produced revenues of more than euro 5 million euro.

The Munich prosecutor's search came a couple of weeks after it was revealed the German monopoly authority is probing Eventim's $183.5 million purchase of major rival See Tickets Germany and Ticket Online Group.

The Cartel Office wants to see detailed information on the deal to determine whether it should have been notified of the transaction under the country's merger control regulations.

Eventim says a team of specialist merger lawyers monitored the acquisition and concluded no notification was necessary due to the revenue and ownership situation when the transaction took place.

"We are confident that, after detailed examination of all the facts, the Federal Cartel Office will reach the same conclusion as we did," Schulenberg said in a company statement.

CTS Eventim is also DFB's partner at next year's women's World Cup in Germany.