FIFA cuts World Cup ticket prices to $60 for loyal fans after global backlash

FIFA has slashed the price of some World Cup tickets to as low as $60 for teams’ most loyal supporters following a wave of global criticism over soaring costs.

The move comes after fans accused world football’s governing body of a “monumental betrayal” when details of the latest ticket prices began circulating lastThursday. Under FIFA’s ticketing structure, around eight per cent of tickets for matches involving a particular team are allocated to national football associations to be sold directly to their most committed supporters.

However, a price list published by the German football federation showed that tickets for group-stage matches ranged from $180 to $700. Prices for the final were listed at between $4,185 and $8,680, fuelling anger among supporters and fan groups.

The figures stood in stark contrast to FIFA’s repeated claims that tickets priced at $60 would be available. When the United States and its co-hosts bid for the tournament seven years ago, US Soccer officials had pledged that hundreds of thousands of seats would be available at around $21 during the opening phase of the competition.

Football Supporters Europe (FSE), a leading fan organisation, described the published prices as “extortionate”. It said that, based on the information available, fans could be forced to pay up to €6,900 ($8,111) to attend every match from the opening game through to the final using the participant member association (PMA) allocation. According to FSE, this was around five times more than what supporters paid to follow the entire tournament at the previous World Cup in Qatar.

“This is a monumental betrayal of the tradition of the World Cup, ignoring the contribution of supporters to the spectacle it is,” the organisation said in a statement.

FSE also criticised FIFA for failing to apply a standard pricing structure across group-stage matches, alleging that ticket costs appeared to be calculated based on “vague criteria such as the perceived attractiveness of the fixture”.