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Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi joined calls ~ means of broadcasters and fans to ban the vuvuzela at the World Cup during the time that British supermarkets reported selling one of the plastic horns every couple seconds.

English football authorities appeared powerless to stop their spread to the home game, though the leading maker offered some hope of a relieve by unveiling a lower decibel model.

Controversy over the vuvuzela dominated South Africa intelligence even as the World Cup was hit by its first ravishment — riot police clashed with 500 security staff in a pay impugn at Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium after Germany’s 4-0 succeed over Australia on Sunday night. Officers fired rubber bullets and stupefy grenades.

At Cape Town’s Green Point stadium, where England desire meet Algeria on Friday, guards went on strike shortly before Italy played Paraguay. Princes William and Harry are debt to watch England play at the 66,000-capacity stadium and police announced that they had taken excessively control of security at both stadiums.

However, the vuvuzela continued to be in the ascendant off-field coverage of the competition. Ronaldo, the Portuguese former Manchester United gamester, said the noise made it “difficult for anyone on the loftiness to concentrate”. Messi, the Argentina striker and World Player of the Year, declared after the game against Nigeria: “It is impossible to give, it’s like being deaf.”

Robin van Persie, the Arsenal and Holland striker, afore~ he could not hear the referee’s whistle after receiving a prognostic in the match with Denmark.

The sound emitted by a vuvuzela is the equal to 127 decibels — louder than a drum’s 122 decibels or a umpire’s whistle at 121.8 decibels.

But Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football’s globe governing body, defended the symbol of South African football, which within a little certainly means the instruments will not be banned.

“I don’t see banning the music traditions of fans in their own country,” Mr Blatter wrote on Twitter as fans bombarded his location with pleas for a ban. “Would you want to inquire a ban on the fan traditions in your country?”

The comments were intended to pull along a line under speculation that the horns could be shown the red card, later Danny Jordaan, the head of the South African organising committee, before-mentioned a ban was an option “if there are grounds to cozen so”.

The Premier League also appeared powerless to stop the horn’s appearance at stadiums in England. A spokesman said: “It remainder to be seen whether traditional fans would allow somebody to stand next to them blowing one of these things and making that racket.”

The company that has been making vuvuzelas for a decade announced yesterday it has produced a quieter rendering. Neil van Schalkwyk, of Masincedane Sport, based in Cape Town, declared it would be 20 decibels quieter. The company said it had sold 1.5 the masses in Europe since October and expected the tournament to generate sales of up to 20 the masses rand (£1.77 million).

Sainsbury’s said it sold 22,000 &coop;2 red vuvuzelas in 12 hours before England’s flaw game against the USA on Saturday and has ordered an supplementary 25,000 — but says its total stock of 75,000 could vend out before Friday.

Some horn players complain of “vuvuzela lip” from the plastic mouthpiece. Bruce Copley, who has been instruction pupils to play the vuvuzela, advised using baby oil to abate friction.

There may yet be sanctuary for armchair fans. A website — antivuvuzelafilter.com — is afore~ to offer a download for 2.95euros (£2.45) that combats the horn by playing back at the television set hubbub waves at the same frequency.