04/01/26 09:48:00
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04/01 21:46 CDT FIFA raises top ticket price for World Cup final to $10,990
during glitch-hampered sales reopening
FIFA raises top ticket price for World Cup final to $10,990 during
glitch-hampered sales reopening
By The Associated Press
FIFA raised its top ticket price for the World Cup final to $10,990 during the
glitch-hampered reopening of sales Wednesday after the 48-team field for this
year's tournament was finalized.
The price had been $8,680 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, were $7,380, up from $5,575, and category 3 cost
$5,785, an increase $4,185.
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 U.S. cities plus three in Mexico and two in Canada.
Only $2,735 tickets, the highest-priced seats, were available by evening for
the U.S. opener on June 12 against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood,
California, and the price was unchanged from December. No tickets were listed
for the Americans' June 19 game against Australia at Seattle or their June 25
match against Turkey at Inglewood.
Only $2,985 seats were available by Wednesday evening for the tournament opener
between Mexico and Saudi Arabia on June 11 in Mexico City, up from $2,355 in
December. And only $2,240 tickets were available for Canada's first game on
June 12 against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto, an increase from $2,170.
Soccer's governing body did not announce which games and price categories were
available, leaving potential ticket buyers to search 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 a.m. 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 were being put on sale for the
104 games to be played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19
and that additional tickets will be released on a rolling basis.
This was the fifth phase of ticket sales following a Visa presale draw from
Sept. 10-19, an early ticket draw from Oct. 27-31, a random selection draw from
Dec. 11 to Jan. 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 Dec. 5 draw, tickets were priced at
$140 to $8,680. After complaints, FIFA said $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% 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 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 U.S. 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 organizers.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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