FIFA raised its top ticket price for the World Cup final to $10,990 (₹8,81,500) during the glitch-hampered reopening of sales after the 48-team field for this year’s tournament was finalised.
The price had been $8,680 (₹6,95,300) when FIFA sold tickets after the tournament draw in December.
FIFA’s category 2 tickets for the July 19 game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, hiked from $5,270 (₹4,46,800) to $7,380 (₹5,91,400) and category 3 from $3,960 (₹3,35,300) to $5,785 (₹5,01,600).
Tickets were listed for 17 of the 72 group-stage matches by Wednesday night and none of the knockout stage games. Soccer’s governing body is using dynamic pricing for the tournament, which will be played in 11 US cities plus three in Mexico and two in Canada.
A Category 1 ticket for the opening clash between Mexico and Canada at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City was priced at $2,985 (₹2.39 lakh). In comparison, Category 2 tickets cost $2,260 (₹1.81 lakh) and Category 3 tickets were available for $1,410 (₹1.13 lakh).
Soccer’s governing body did not announce which games and price categories were available, leaving potential ticket buyers to search for themselves on a FIFA ticketing site that often took hours to enter.
Some people who clicked on what FIFA called its “last-minute sales phase” when sales opened at 11 am EDT were directed into a queue for “PMA late qualifier supporters sales phase,” aimed for a segment of fans for the six nations who earned berths on Tuesday.
FIFA did not have an explanation for why the link misdirection occurred but said around noon that the links were working properly.
FIFA also said that not all remaining tickets for the 104 games to be played in the US, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19 were being put on sale, and that additional tickets would be released on a rolling basis.
This was the fifth phase of ticket sales following a Visa presale draw from September 10-19, an early ticket draw from October 27-31, a random selection draw from December 11 to January 13 and an unscheduled 48-hour availability in late February.
FIFA said this phase, which will remain open through the tournament, marked the first time a specific seat location could be purchased rather than a request for a ticket in a category.
For the month-long sales phase after the December 5 draw, tickets were priced at USD 140 to USD 8,680. After complaints, FIFA said USD 60 tickets would be made available to each participating national federation for their most loyal supporters, an amount likely to be 400-700 per team for each match.
“The employment of dynamic ticket pricing for the 2026 FWC starkly contrasts with FIFA’s core mission to promote the accessible and inclusive promotion and development of soccer globally,” 69 Democratic members of Congress wrote in a March 10 letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
“Despite host cities’ cooperation in bringing the vision of the largest, most global World Cup in history to fruition, the consequences of dynamic pricing will make the 2026 FWC the most financially exclusionary and inaccessible to date.” FIFA also has its own resale market, collecting 15 pere cent from both the buyer and seller.
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Congo, the Czech Republic, Iraq, Sweden and Turkey completed the World Cup field. Fans of teams eliminated on Tuesday could attempt to resell tickets they already had purchased, nations that include Italy, Poland, Denmark, Jamaica and Bolivia.
Infantino claimed in January that the amount of ticket requests FIFA had received was the equivalent of “the request for 1,000 years of World Cups at once.” “This is unique,” he said at the time. “It’s incredible.” It was unclear if many of those requests were for seats in the lowest-price categories.
Fan groups have voiced concern over the soaring costs for resold tickets and one filed a formal complaint to the European Commission last month.
Infantino defended FIFA’s cut of resales, saying the governing body was engaged in a legal commercial activity under US law. Some European countries have laws which can restrict resale by requiring tickets to be sold for face value or only by authorized partners of the event organisers.
(With AP inputs)
