One week before the 2026 World Cup begins, serious questions remain unanswered about the true availability and pricing of match tickets.
Fifa promised the tournament would be a sell-out, yet thousands of tickets remain available across multiple platforms, including the governing body’s own resale site.
BBC Sport has found tickets for matches involving smaller nations are now available well below face value, raising serious doubts about Fifa’s repeated assurances.
World football’s governing body has itself been accused of dumping inventory it cannot sell on third-party platform SeatGeek, though the situation remains difficult to fully verify.
The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have officially launched an investigation into Fifa’s ticket practices, subpoenaing the organisation over allegations of “artificially inflating prices” and “misleading fans.”
According to the subpoena, some fans who paid for tickets in one price category were ultimately issued tickets of a lower value, further away from the pitch than expected.
Fifa deployed variable pricing rather than dynamic pricing, and at no stage was a full pricing structure published before fans were asked to pay.
Stadium maps were altered during the sales process, with more expensive seat categories quietly added without supporters being informed beforehand.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino declared in February that “every match is already sold out,” adding “we keep some tickets back for some last-minute sales, of course, but every match is sold out.”
The reality, however, appears considerably more complicated than that confident assertion suggested.
Independent tracking site TicketData reported close to 74,000 tickets available across 86 of the 104 matches on Saturday, with numbers fluctuating dramatically in the hours that followed.
Within a few hours of that figure being recorded, TicketData noted the number of tickets on Fifa’s face value site dropped by more than half to around 32,000, falling further to 22,000 by Tuesday.
Shortly after that drop on Fifa’s own site, availability on SeatGeek appeared to increase markedly, with batches of seats listed in rows of specific blocks rather than single, random listings.
SeatGeek issued a statement in response to the attention, reading: “SeatGeek is a trusted marketplace that gives fans secure access to tickets across tens of thousands of live events, including the World Cup. We do not have a partnership or distribution agreement with Fifa.”
Fifa has been approached for comment but, as has been the case throughout the ticket sales process, no response has been received.
The price drops for lower-demand matches are striking, with Jordan v Algeria in Santa Clara showing the greatest recorded fall among the fixtures BBC Sport examined.
Two tickets in block 121 carrying a face value of $620 could be bought for £171 on Fifa’s own resale site, representing a discount of 64 percent against the original price.
Even the opening match between Mexico and South Africa still has over 500 seats available on Fifa’s face value site, though each costs $2,273 per ticket.
After tickets for Chelsea’s Club World Cup quarter-final against Palmeiras dropped to just £8.17, some observers believe World Cup prices may still have further to fall before the tournament begins.
