For months, people in my life have asked me when and where to get World Championship tickets. In the absence of any useful information from FIFA before the opening of the first round of pre-sale preparations, I think they were hoping that I had inside information.
In truth, I only knew that FIFA would use the universally despised dynamic pricing modeland this order book for the 2026 World Cup they promised that the average ticket price for the group stage would be $305. Keep in mind, this was seven and a half years ago, and there has been terrible inflation since then. The application priced Category 4 tickets for the group stage (the cheapest seats) at $21. (As we soon learned, the actual price would start at $60, and There are practically no tickets of the 4th category..)
I play over-40 soccer with a group of several dozen soccer-loving friends in New York's Hudson Valley. The group chat was looking forward to the first round of general ticket sales in early October. They shared tidbits. Links shared. It was widely accepted that the prices would be staggering – certainly several hundred dollars per ticket, as it was the essence of the World Cup in North Americaafter everything. Nineteen of us entered the Visa pre-sale lottery, along with 4.5 million others. Two of us, including myself, bought time to buy tickets. This is hardly a scientific sample for two people, but if our experience is anything to go by, there are already serious questions about the accessibility of this World Cup (it makes sense accessibility-oriented political candidate this would create a problem).
The first of us to venture into the time slot stage spent two hours in a queue loop with a countdown that resets every 10 minutes. When he finally entered, category four tickets were sold out. He bought some category three tickets to a playoff game in New Jersey, but his bank blocked the transaction. By the time he resolved the issue, the system would not allow him to re-order those tickets because it had recorded the original failed transaction as a sale, thereby preventing him from repurchasing for the same match. He eventually agreed to some tickets for the group stage instead.
Two days later, I also spent several hours in ticket purgatory before I was finally given a full five minutes to log in.
It was kind of ironic that I managed to go through with it at all, since I was on the verge of taking my family to the World Cup in the first place, after our last entry into the FIFA tournament there were ups and downs. But another year will pass and the World Cups, in all their colour, noise and sensation, are extraordinary things to behold. I've been to three, and these are milestones in my life that have created vivid memories that I doubt will ever completely fade. I decided that I could always cancel the tickets on the FIFA secondary market (minus the 15% commission) if we decided not to go. But I wanted this experience to at least be something we could agree on.
When I finally looked at the remaining inventory, everything in Category 3 was gone, as were all the games I was interested in—basically everything within a three-hour drive. The cheapest tickets for any game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey were $465 apiece, and for some reason that was also likely for the upper deck. If we got the maximum of four tickets, that would easily be $2,000 a day between tickets, parking, and other expenses. And with nearly two months still to go before the draw, our tickets could still be for a game like Qatar v Paraguay – which could potentially be eye-popping on the day, sure, but at that price it would require delivering some serious pyrotechnics.
I gave it up. Instead, I suggested to someone in my men's group that we negotiate the $465 tickets and pass them along. Of the 28 people in the chat inquiring about World Cup tickets (I went back and polled them because we're doing journalism here), only one accepted my offer. After all, he had friends coming from England for the World Cup and he didn't want to let them down.
I booked him four category 2 group stage tickets at the Meadowlands for a total cost of $1,860. “I’ll probably regret this,” he said as he signed the purchase agreement.
Then a new commotion began: the actual transfer of tickets to him.
One fruitless attempt after another resulted in the tickets being stuck in my memory. FIFA check. “It felt like real progress when, after a week, the website went from aimlessly updating when trying to accept an offer to actually returning an error code,” said a friend.
It took almost two weeks for the transfer function to finally work. And when it eventually happened, it left no paper trail at all. The tickets simply disappeared from my account and showed up in his without giving me any notification, confirmation or receipt as to the status of my nearly $2,000 purchase.
after promoting the newsletter
With the second round of early ticket drawings starting on Monday and another round of sales starting on November 12th, my experience makes me wonder who will actually be in the ticket drawing. be at this world championship. With ticket prices like these and technical problems like these, who does it all? For? And who will ultimately be there when the games begin?
If even those who have the interest, disposable income, time and logistics to get to the game question these prices, who are the real customers? According to FIFA, more than a million tickets were sold in the first stage, but to whom? And how the hell can fans from other countries, where spending power is typically lower than the American middle class – and also have to pay for airfare and accommodations – even afford to go? Will there be any atmosphere at the games if the stadiums are filled only with stockbrokers, lawyers, tech bros, sponsors and dignitaries?
Will this be the world championship for the 1%?
It is probably possible to say with greater certainty who there won't be Be there: Many people really want to go to this generational event but can't afford it. A teacher I know is desperately trying to get tickets – any kind – for her football-mad son. She had been asking for news about where and how to buy them for at least a year, maybe two. When I told her how much the tickets I had access to were selling for, she winced and shook her head sadly. “No…” she said. “No.”
-
Leander Charlekens' book about the US men's national soccer team, The Long Game, will be published in spring 2026. You can pre-order here. He teaches at Marist University.
