The two men flew to Russia with plans to watch Argentina take on Croatia last week in the host city of Nizhny Novgorod, according to Russian media reports. But they accidentally went to the town of Veliky Novgorod, some 800 kilometres further west.

After their mistake came to light, the two fans were contacted by regional officials who said Putin had secured them tickets for Argentina’s game against Nigeria in St Petersburg five days later, which their side won 2-1, Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported.

Asked by Interfax news agency whether Putin had ordered that the Argentina fans be awarded the tickets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “That’s the truth.”

“They told us that they were giving us tickets to the game in Saint Petersburg on the orders of Vladimir Putin,” the newspaper quoted one of the men as saying.

FIFA and the Argentine Football Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Kremlin is keen to use the World Cup to showcase Russia as an open and welcoming country, and has worked hard to address concerns about some international visitors having to travel extensively between 11 host cities across the country.

While no major disruptions have yet been reported, some fans have arrived in Russia to discover that they have hotel reservations in other cities or booked trains to the wrong destination.

Around 100 Nigerian fans, for example, were temporarily stranded in the Russian exclave and World Cup host city of Kaliningrad earlier in the tournament due to visa problems.