FIFA Raises World Cup Final Ticket Price to $10,990 in Glitch-Hampered Sales Reopening

Top Ticket Price Hits Nearly $11,000

FIFA has raised the top ticket price for the 2026 World Cup final to $10,990 (€9,533) — a significant jump from the $8,680 (€7,529) price when tickets first went on sale following the tournament draw in December.

Category 2 tickets for the final have risen by $1,805 (€1,566) since then, with Category 3 up by $1,600 (€1,388). The price increase was confirmed during the latest round of ticket sales on Wednesday, which was also plagued by website glitches that left fans waiting hours to even get into the purchasing queue.

Dynamic Pricing: The Controversial System Behind the Rises

FIFA is using dynamic pricing for the tournament — meaning the price customers pay can change during the ticket sale process depending on demand and availability. Critics say this has turned the 2026 World Cup into the most expensive in history for fans.

Democratic members of the US Congress wrote to FIFA President Gianni Infantino in a March 10 letter warning that dynamic pricing "will make the 2026 FWC the most financially exclusionary and inaccessible to date."

Euroconsumers, a European consumer rights organisation, and Football Supporters Europe have also filed a formal complaint to the European Commission over the soaring costs. Some European countries have laws restricting ticket resale, requiring tickets to be sold at face value or only through authorised partners — putting FIFA's approach in direct conflict with consumer protection rules in several markets.

What Was on Sale — and What Wasn't

Tickets were listed for just 17 of the 72 group-stage matches as of Wednesday evening, with none of the knockout-stage games yet available. FIFA said this was the fifth phase of ticket sales and the first time buyers could select a specific seat location rather than simply requesting a ticket in a category.

Some matches had only the most expensive seats available. For the US opener against Paraguay, only $2,735 (€2,372) tickets were on offer. No tickets were listed at all for the US games against Australia (June 19) or Turkey. The tournament opener between Mexico and Saudi Arabia on June 11 had only $2,985 (€2,589) seats available — up $630 from the December sale price.

A Glitchy, Chaotic Experience for Fans

The purchasing process itself was widely criticised. FIFA did not announce in advance which games or price categories were available, leaving potential buyers to search a ticketing site that often took hours to enter.

Some fans who clicked on what FIFA called its "last-minute sales phase" were mistakenly directed into a queue for a different sales phase intended only for supporters of the six nations that had just qualified. FIFA acknowledged the misdirection but offered no explanation for why it occurred.

FIFA also confirmed that not all remaining tickets were being released at once, with additional tickets to be made available on a rolling basis throughout the tournament.

Infantino's Take

FIFA President Infantino has claimed that ticket requests already received are the equivalent of "the request for 1,000 years of World Cups at once" — though it remains unclear how many of those requests were for seats in the lowest price categories.

On the resale market, FIFA takes a 15% cut from both buyer and seller. Infantino defended this as "a legal commercial activity under US law."

This article is based on reporting from Euronews, published April 2, 2026. This article is for informational purposes only.