MATURIN, Venezuela, July 1 - Thousands of fans were forced to walk kilometres and queue for hours under a baking sun ahead of the Brazil-Chile and Mexico-Ecuador games at the Copa America on Sunday.

The area surrounding the newly-built 52,000 capacity Monumental stadium was a sea of mud with construction materials and piles of debris still in place.

On Saturday, less than 24 hours before kickoff, workers had still been putting the finishing touches to the stadium.

Fans who got within sight of the yellow stadium on the outskirts of the city were then ushered to a round-about route at least two kilometres long to the main entrance.

A Reuters reporter saw fans having to wait in a queue several hundred metres long with no shade in temperatures of around 30 Celsius.

Once through the main entrance, the fans had to wait in the sun again to go through another security check.

Inside the stadium, which does not have a press box, layers of dust covered the new plastic seats and piles of uncleared rubbish accumulated in the corners.

Venezuela has ambitiously spread the Copa America around nine venue cities but has struggled to get the stadiums ready in time.

Work is still progressing at the arena in Puerto La Cruz, which is due to host its first games on Wednesday.

The first semi-final, due to be played in Caracas on July 10, was last week switched to Maracaibo 700 kilometres away because of security fears.

A widely-publicised ticketing scandal has added to the chaos.

Thousands of people who tried to buy tickets over the Internet or by telephone complained they never received a reply, even though their credit cards were debited.