The Football Supporters Europe group (FSE) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday with the European Commission against football’s world governing body, FIFA, over “excessive ticket prices” for this year’s World Cup finals.
The FSE and the Euroconsumers group stated that the tickets for the June 11-July 19 tournament in the US, Canada, and Mexico were overpriced and complained that FIFA had a monopoly over the sales.
“Euroconsumers and Football Supporters Europe (FSE) have filed a formal complaint with the European Commission against FIFA, alleging that the football body has abused its monopoly position to impose excessive ticket prices and opaque and unfair purchasing conditions and processes on European fans ahead of the 2026 World Cup,” the FSE said in a statement.
“FIFA holds a monopoly over ticket sales for the 2026 World Cup and has used that power to impose conditions on fans that would never be acceptable in a competitive market,” the group added.
The FSE mentioned that the prices for the final were way above those for the 2022 final in Qatar.
“The cheapest openly available final tickets now start at $4,185—more than seven times the cost of the cheapest 2022 World Cup final ticket,” they said.
By contrast, it noted that the cheapest UEFA Euro 2024 final tickets were 95 euros ($100).
“FIFA’s own bid documents projected an average ticket price of $1,408, but that number has been left far behind,” FSE added.
According to FIFA, about seven million tickets have been made available.
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Each person is allowed to purchase a maximum of four tickets per match and a total of 40 for the whole competition.
This expanded World Cup, the first to involve 48 teams, will have 104 matches in all, and ticket prices for the most popular games have risen significantly.
According to FSE, the North American bid initially stated that tickets would be available for as little as $21, but the cheapest tickets to go on sale were $60 for the Group J opener between Austria and Jordan at Levi’s Stadium in California.
The majority of tickets for matches involving major nations cost at least $200.
Some tickets for the final on FIFA’s official resale site are being sold at exorbitant prices.
One category three seat for the event at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey was advertised for $143,750, more than 41 times the initial face value of $3,450.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino insists that ticket prices are merely a result of the high demand.
“In the US in particular, there is this thing called dynamic pricing, meaning the prices will go up or down depending on the match in question,” Infantino has said.
FSE stated that the problem with ‘dynamic pricing’ is that there is no limit to how high the prices can go.
“FIFA used ‘variable pricing,’ or dynamic pricing, with no cap and no transparency on how prices are set,” it said in the statement.
“Some tickets rose 25% between sales phases. Fans had no clear way of knowing the final price before joining the queue.”
After receiving much criticism over ticket pricing, FIFA introduced a lower-cost category of tickets; however, those seats available for $60 were reserved for fans of qualified teams and would account for only 10% of each national federation’s allotment.
“FIFA repeatedly advertised $60 group-stage tickets,” FSE said.
“In practice, they were so scarce that the entire Category 4 inventory was practically sold out before general public sales opened.”
FIFA has set aside an undefined number of tickets, which will be made available from April until the end of the competition “on a first-come, first-served basis.”
Then there are resale platforms, which include FIFA’s official website. However, in this contentious fan-to-fan market, resellers can set their own pricing, which explains the exorbitant stated price for a final ticket.
The resale market is uncontrolled in both the United States and Canada. Reselling a ticket for more than its face value is illegal in Mexico, but only when purchased with local currency.
