The Tanzania Football Federation is charging record entrance fees for the upcoming friendly game against Brazil on 7 June in Dar es Salaam in a bid to cover the match costs.

Tanzania media reports say the east African country paid up to $2.5 million as a match fee to the Brazilians.

The TFF has remained silent, refusing to confirm or deny the speculation.

To recover the costs, the federation has priced match tickets ranging from US$25 to US$180.

The highest ticket price ever to be charged was US$45 when the country played Cameroon in last year’s World Cup qualifiers.

That match grossed over US$500,000.

The federation is confident they will be able to recover the costs of the Brazil game through gate collections.

“The TFF president has told Tanzanians that bringing Brazil here is very expensive and he urged them to be ready to bear the burden,” the federation’s secretary general Frederick Mwakalebela said.

“We expect to cover all the costs of bringing the Brazilians here through the gate collections,” he said.

Football fans in the country are gripped with match fever and newspapers have been reporting on the progress of the Brazilian stars currently training in South Africa.

There was bad news on Monday with newspapers running screaming headlines about Kaka’s injury – “Tanzanians to miss Kaka in action,” said one sports newspaper.

Mwakalebela said tickets for VIP seats had been over-booked and he expected that the match will sell out.

TFF president Ledegar Tega also hoped the costs would be redeemed through gate collections.

“This is a responsibility we should take,” he told BBC’s African sports program Fast Track.

“In the absence of corporate sponsors, I hope people will understand, it is an opportunity for the people to pay a bus fare to the stadium and watch Brazil instead of having to go all the way to South Africa.”