FIFA World Cup humiliation as 1000’s of empty seats seen by world viewers
FIFA’s high-ticket-price strategy backfired spectacularly on the opening day of World Cup 2026, as thousands of empty seats were visible worldwide
The controversy surrounding the FIFA World Cup ticketing reached a new low after visible patches of empty seats in just the second match.(Image: (Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images))
A vast number of empty seats were visible during South Korea’s comeback win over Czech Republic in their World Cup opener.
It comes amid a ticketing controversy surrounding FIFA’s implementation ahead of this summers’ historic tournament. The governing body’s controversial World Cup ticketing strategy became immediately apparent to a global television audience. Earlier in the day, FOX violated a FIFA rule during the tournament’s inaugural match by showing adverts during a drinks break and cutting away from the live feed.
The second fixture of the competition, South Korea against Czechia at Estadio Akron in Guadalajara, offered the clearest early sign of the problem. Empty sections were clearly visible throughout the encounter, particularly in the VIP areas and sections facing away from the main camera.
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This followed drama that unfolded in the very first game. It was a scene that FIFA had spent months and millions trying to prevent. As late as early June, the governing body quietly slashed prices across all 104 fixtures and freed up 70 per cent of its bulk-reserved hotel rooms in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to pack seats.
On the eve of tournament approximately 180,000 tickets remained available across FIFA’s official resale platforms. Around 15,000 group-stage tickets could still be purchased directly through FIFA’s website. For the United States’ opening match against Paraguay on 12 June, one of the tournament’s most hotly anticipated clashes, over 4,400 seats remained unsold through official channels.
The least expensive tickets still demanded $1,120 (£835) directly from FIFA, with the average resale price hovering above $800 (£597) even after a 20 per cent dip in prices over the past month.
The root of the crisis can be traced back to FIFA’s decision to implement variable pricing for the first time at a World Cup, a model it has differentiated from “dynamic pricing” largely as a matter of semantics. Prices for 90 of the 104 matches soared by an average of 34 per cent between October 2025 and April 2026.
The cheapest standard ticket to the final reached a staggering $5,785 (£4315). The most expensive seats peaked at $10,990 before later tripling once again.
Final tickets on the resale market were at one point listed at nearly $33,000. When the United States, Canada and Mexico submitted their original hosting bid, a seat at the final was promised at a maximum of $1,550.
However, it was something Gianni Infantino defended in his final press conference on Thursday. He said: “If you sell it at a lower price point.
“In this particular market it would have gone — which is perfectly legal in this country … in secondary markets at much, much, much higher prices and where would the money go then? Well, to those who organise secondary markets or black market activities and not to football.
“When it comes to these legal investigations or complaints that were made in some states in the U.S. We are very relaxed about it because before starting to sell 6 and a half or 7 million tickets we check what we do with the best lawyers, with the best experts.
“If we do something wrong, then probably everyone selling tickets in North America is doing something wrong, as well.”
The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey initiated a formal investigation into the pricing practices, issuing subpoenas to FIFA. Congressional figures demanded Gianni Infantino to testify before Congress.
A day before the tournament kicked off, Infantino defended the pricing by arguing that cheaper tickets would have been resold on the black market.
The vacant seats on the opening day serve as the most scathing rebuttal yet to that assertion. FIFA bragged in January that its ticketing website had garnered over 500 million booking requests.
However, judging by Thursday’s inaugural matches, demand at the prices set by FIFA was significantly lower.
