MOSCOW, June 15 (Xinhua) -- FIFA has launched an investigation to determine why there were thousands of empty seats for the World Cup match between Egypt and Uruguay in Yekaterinburg on Friday.

Uruguay won the Group A clash at Ekaterinburg Stadium 1-0 after a 90th-minute header from Atletico Madrid defender Jose Jimenez.

More than 6,000 seats - around 20% of the venue's capacity - were unoccupied.

"We can confirm that the official attendance for the match between Egypt and Uruguay in Ekaterinburg is 27,015. The Fifa World Cup stadium capacity is 33,061," a FIFA spokesman said.

"The fact that the actual attendance is lower than the number of allocated tickets can be due to different factors, including 'no shows' on match day, which Fifa is currently investigating."