- FIFA’s biggest World Cup ever is also becoming its most expensive, and ordinary fans are paying the price.
- Ticket demand was real, but resale prices, hotel bookings and late inventory drops suggest FIFA may have overestimated what supporters could actually afford.
- The 2026 tournament may break every commercial record while proving that football no longer needs fans in stadiums to succeed.
FIFA is expecting its most commercially successful tournament in history. US President Donald Trump said the FIFA World Cup 2026 would be the "biggest" and "best in history." FIFA president Gianni Infantino, too, said this year's tournament will be "the greatest event that humanity has ever seen."
But before a ball has been kicked, the world's game has been marred by criticisms of pricing fans out of stadiums, as the tournament’s controversial dynamic pricing model has seen tickets fluctuate with demand to record-breaking levels.
When North America won the hosting vote, the promise was accessibility. Finally launching football in the world's largest untapped sports market, and at prices affordable enough to fill it.
Entry-level tickets for the tournament quickly went from US$21 to US$60. For the everyday punter, they were available only by lottery, across a handful of venues, and in quantities too small to qualify as a genuine offer.
It was the first in a series of accusations – from the media, official fan groups, and even New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – that football’s governing body was rewriting the rules for allocation in real time and pricing fans out of stadiums for what should be the biggest event on football’s global calendar.
At one point, a single Category 1 seat for the final was listed on FIFA's Resale Marketplace at US$2.3 million (~AU$3.2 million).
Now, that's not entry to one of the premium suites dotted through the stadium, reclining with a glass of champagne in hand. It's in the stands. And it's drawn public criticism from the highest office in the country.
"I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump said this month. "If people from Queens and Brooklyn – all the people that love Donald Trump – can't go, I would be disappointed."
Trump and Infantino have cultivated an unusually close relationship since the President's return to office. Infantino went as far as creating and personally awarding Trump a FIFA Peace Prize, reportedly without prior approval from the FIFA Council. So when the President of the host nation publicly breaks with your pricing strategy three weeks before kick-off, it puts the organisers in a difficult position.
“We are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world,” Infantino said. “So we have to apply market rates.”
And whilst the FIFA president can't exactly set the price changes himself, he stands to benefit from them, with FIFA charging a 15% fee to both buyer and seller on every resale transaction through its own platform – 30% total, skimmed off the top of a scalping market FIFA itself created and controls.
Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills – where, it's worth noting, a ticket to watch Infantino speak live about World Cup ticket prices costs up to US$50,000 – the FIFA president batted away the US$2.3 million resale listings with what he seemed to believe was a disarming joke.
"If some people put on the resale market some tickets for the final at $2 million, number one, it doesn't mean that the tickets cost $2 million," Infantino explained.
"And number two, it doesn't mean that somebody will buy these tickets. If somebody buys a ticket for the final for $2 million, I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke to make sure that he has a great experience."
The room, presumably, laughed. Supporters in Queens and Brooklyn did not. And with just three weeks until the first ball is kicked in Mexico City, it begs the question: Who the hell is paying for the most expensive World Cup in history?
Well, according to Infantino, FIFA received more than 500 million ticket requests for the 2026 World Cup – compared with fewer than 50 million combined for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments – for just ~7 million seats.
All of the tickets made available, around 90% according to Infantino, have been sold. The demand, he insists, justifies the price.
But what the subsequent price escalation did was filter that demand, from prospective buyers to higher-income earners and corporate purchasers: a premium consumer base that is smaller, less price-tolerant, and less globally mobile than the projections assumed.
“Football is a universal passion, but FIFA is treating it like a private luxury by exploiting its absolute monopoly over World Cup ticketing,” Marco Scialdone, Head of Litigation at Euroconsumers, said in a joint statement with Football Supporters Europe (FSE).
“By imposing opaque pricing, dark patterns to pressure buyers, and exorbitant resale fees, FIFA is placing an unfair financial burden on millions of European fans.”
The demand, it seems, is fading, with the average "get-in" resale price for a group stage match on TicketData having now fallen to around US$550 (~AU$775), down from US$720 (~AU$1,000) just a month ago. A 24% drop, less than three weeks before kick-off.
Infantino correctly read the initial demand. The evidence suggests he overestimated the purchasing power and appetite of the audience he was pricing for.
FIFA has now released an unscheduled wave of additional inventory – unplanned drops that suggest the governing body is responding to softer demand rather than executing a pre-planned release strategy.
And if recent hospitality reports are to be believed, host cities are feeling the pinch beyond the stadium gates, with CBS reporting that hotel occupancy in Los Angeles has fallen 18% compared to the same period in 2024 – despite the city hosting eight World Cup matches, including the United States’ opener against Paraguay.
Similarly, the American Hotel & Lodging Association – the largest hotel association in the US – says 80% of hotel bookings across the US are below expectations during the tournament period. Kansas City (85-90%), Los Angeles (65-70%), and New York City (over 60%) all report softer-than-expected bookings.
High ticket prices are hardly the only reason why international fans are staying away: flights, accommodation, transport costs, visas, and the enduring cost of living crisis have all climbed sharply around the tournament. But together, FIFA’s problem is becoming harder to ignore.
The full picture, published in FIFA's own projection documents, goes beyond skyward ticket prices.
Total revenue for 2026 is projected at US$8.9 billion (~AU$12.4 billion) across 104 matches – up from US$7.5 billion (~AU$10.5 billion) across 64 matches in Qatar in 2022. Sounds simple. More matches, more revenue. But when you break it down and divide the total by the number of games, the revenue per match falls from roughly US$117 million (~AU$164 million) to US$85 million (~AU$119 million).
FIFA is hosting 63% more games to generate 19% more money. Each match, by FIFA's own numbers, is worth less than it was four years ago.
The reason: broadcast rights. Which, according to FIFA, will generate US$3.92 billion (~AU$5.5 billion) – 44% of total revenue – sold once, as a package, for the entire tournament.
Further still, FIFA's own projections show ticketing and hospitality generating US$3.017 billion (~AU$4.25 billion) in 2026, up 216% from US$929 million (~AU$1.3 billion) in Qatar 2022. That increase – the single largest growth line in FIFA's commercial model – is being funded, in part, by the fans in the stands.
They are being asked to absorb a 216% increase in matchday revenue to make an expanded format financially viable, while each individual game they are attending generates less total value for the organisation than the equivalent game did four years ago.
We’ve seen it happening across football for years. In 2016, 10,000 Liverpool fans walked out of Anfield in the 77th minute of a game in protest against the Merseyside club’s American ownership hiking prices to £77 for the coming season.
Fenway Sports Group, which also counts the Boston Red Sox in its ranks, apologised within four days. The £77 ticket was scrapped, and general admission was frozen at the existing price point.
But a decade is a long time in football, and the new commercial model for the World Cup no longer needs them in the stands; it needs them in front of the screen, consuming, scrolling, sharing.
Regardless of whether the stadium in Kansas City is full of die-hard fans who have been saving for years to finally see their national heroes on home soil, or with clients who expensed the hospitality package and will leave before the penalties, the rights are sold, contracted, and secured.
By those metrics, the ones FIFA has decided to count – revenue, reach, engagement, money – the 2026 World Cup will be a success. The biggest in history. The greatest humanity has ever seen.
"Football without fans is nothing," as the saying goes. FIFA put that quote on a banner in stadiums around the world. But they’ve since spent the last four years proving it’s negotiable.
