FIFA wants £8,333 for top seats at the big match – £638 more than the cost of a new Citroen Ami
FIFA is flogging tickets for the World Cup final for more than the cost of a brand new car.
Football’s world governing body wants £8,333 for top level seats at the big match on July 19.
It is thought to be the most expensive ever general admission price to a football match.
That is £638 more than the cost of a brand spanking new Citroen Ami – an all-electric motor designed for city commuters.
It is also more than a host of luxury second-hand cars currently available across the UK – including a black 2008 Porsche Cayenne 4.5 Turbo (£6,495), blue 2014 C Class Mercedes-Benz (£7,270), red 2014 Jaguar XF (£7,990), white 2016 Audi A4 (£7,999) and white 2016 BMW X3 (£8,000).
In their World Cup bid book the three 2026 tournament hosts – the US, Canada and Mexico – pledged tickets to the final would cost a maximum of £1,174.
But by the time they went on sale to members of each country’s official supporters’ club in December the most expensive was £6,581.
Prices went up again when Wednesday’s final sale period began.
Tickets for the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar cost £1,214 for the top-priced seat.
Establishing the cost of tickets for this summer’s tournament is difficult as FIFA has never released its pricing structures.
It uses a version of dynamic pricing in which seat costs change at the start of each sales point depending on past demand.
After the cost of the initial ticket releases last year sparked outrage and threats of fan boycotts FIFA announced a small number of £45 seats.
But yesterday tickets went on open sale for the first time and some prices were revealed.
Analysis of the ticketing website revealed seats for the World Cup final have rocketed by up to 38% since December.
Apart from the £8,333 Category One admission the price of second tier tickets was up 33% to £5,596.
While Category Three seats shot up 38% to £4,386.
Fans who got through the purchasing process found prices had gone up for the most in-demand fixtures including the top teams and key knockout games.
Investigators queued for six hours and 14 minutes to get to the ticket page.
Of the 72 group games 35 were listed with tickets available.
But there were none for England or Scotland matches or any knockout fixtures.
The most expensive group stage ticket seen was for the tournament opener between Mexico and South Africa at £2,261 – with only a tiny proportion of the 87,000 capacity available.
A corporate hospitality package for England versus Panama was £94,444 for a luxury suite with 24 match tickets and food and drink – £3,935-per-person.
Availability appeared tom be changing all the time and FIFA has indicated new tickets could be released for any game right up to kick-off.
FIFA’s resale platform – which seems sure to demand even higher prices with both buyers and sellers charged a 15% fee – was scheduled to reopen today.
Thomas Concannon, who leads the Football Supporters’ Association’s fans’ embassy for England away games, said the cost of attending the World Cup will be ‘well into the thousands if not over £10,000’ for just a few matches.
“Sometimes in your life you only get one opportunity to be able to go to a World Cup,” he said.
“For many this was their opportunity and they just won’t be able to afford to go.”
Scotland fan Allan Ross, from Stewarton in Ayrshire, who failed to get tickets on Wednesday, said he will not try again and will treat the trip to the US as a holiday.
“I’m going for the atmosphere. I’m going for a holiday. I don’t want to go across there feeling bitter about FIFA. It’s the definition of madness so I’m not going to chase any more,” he said.
Europe has declared war on FIFA over tournament ticket prices.
Last month watchdog Euroconsumers and Football Supporters Europe filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing the sport’s governing body of abusing its ticket sales monopoly to impose high prices and unfair conditions.
The complaint alleges breaches of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which prohibits abuses of a dominant market position.
Romane Armangau, of Euroconsumers, said: “FIFA has a complete monopoly over World Cup ticket sales.
“They are using that power to charge prices that would not exist in a normal competitive market while hiding information from buyers and manipulating them into rushed decisions.”
The groups highlight a range of alleged abusive practices including limited transparency on ticket categories and seat allocation, a ‘variable pricing’ system that can push costs up over time and a scarcity of advertised £45 tickets.
“When you buy that ticket you don’t actually know what you’re buying,” Romane said.
“It means attending the 2026 World Cup has become financially out of reach for most ordinary supporters.”
The complaint relies on a December 2023 Super League court ruling which said FIFA and UEFA can fall under EU competition law when they organize and market competitions as economic activities.
The filing argues that reasoning applies here too because FIFA is the sole seller of World Cup tickets and is allegedly abusing that dominant position.
Euroconsumers and its partners are urging the European Commission to step in by imposing price caps and forcing greater transparency over sales.
“We are asking the Commission to act immediately with interim measures,” Romane said.
“Once those matches are played the harm to fans cannot be undone.”
A FIFA spokesman said of the car-azy ticket prices it was ‘focused on ensuring fair access to our game for existing but also prospective fans’.
Tickets started at £45 which the governing body said was ‘a very competitive price point for a major global sporting event in the US’.
Those were available for all 104 matches ‘including the final’ and had been ‘allocated specifically to supporters of qualified teams’ to be distributed by their football associations which could define their ‘own eligibility criteria and application process’.
“They are requested to ensure that these tickets are specifically allocated to loyal fans who are closely connected to their national teams,” the spokesman said.
That ensured fans of qualifying nations would ‘benefit from a dedicated ticket pricing tier which has been designed to make following their teams on football’s greatest stage more affordable’.
FIFA had established a sales and secondary market model that ‘reflects standard ticket market practices for major sporting and entertainment events across the host countries’.
Its ‘resale marketplace’ provided a ‘safe, transparent and secure environment for fans to sell or transfer tickets’.
“The applicable resale facilitation fees are aligned with industry standards across North American sports and entertainment sectors,” the spokesman said.
“FIFA’s variable pricing ticketing approach aligns with industry trends across various sports and entertainment sectors where price adaptations are made to optimize sales and attendance and ensure a fair market value for events.
“Unlike the entities behind profit-driven third-party ticket marketplaces FIFA is a not-for-profit organisation.
“Revenue generated from the FIFA World Cup 2026 ticket sales model is reinvested into the global development of football – across the men’s, women’s and youth game – through FIFA’s 211 member associations.
“In fact FIFA expects to reinvest more than 90% of its budgeted investment for the 2023–2026 cycle back into the game.”
Of the European legal challenge FIFA has said it had been ‘made aware of statements concerning an apparent complaint’ which it had not ‘not formally received’.
“FIFA is therefore not in a position to comment further at this stage,” they said.