Soaring Prices and Technical Glitches Blight Latest FIFA World Cup Ticket Phase

Fans attempting to purchase tickets for 2026 FIFA World Cup matches this summer in the latest release this week were left facing technical issues and soaring top ticket prices on the FIFA website, after the full lineup of teams and the match schedule were confirmed.

FIFA’s self-declared “last-minute sales phase,”, which represented the fifth time that tickets had become available for World Cup games, began at 11am ET on April 1 but fans were reportedly made to wait up to 90 minutes to access the ticketing portal and were directed to a queue for a “PMA late qualifier supporters sales phase” involving some of the teams that had just qualified for the tournament a day earlier.

It is also claimed that the website did not list which games or price categories were still available at the time.

FIFA could not explain why the technical issues had occurred but the governing body reassured fans that the site and links were working properly by noon ET, an hour after the latest ticketing sales phase had begun.

The first FIFA World Cup tickets went on sale on September 10 in a Visa presale draw, followed by an early ticket draw in October, a random selection draw in December after the final groups for the tournament had been revealed, and an unscheduled 48-hour burst in late February. FIFA said that more tickets will still be released on a gradual, rolling basis before and throughout the tournament although it is still unclear which matches or price categories will still be available at those times.

According to FIFA, this was also the first opportunity to select specific seat locations when purchasing tickets for this summer’s tournament.

Dynamic Pricing Concerns

Meanwhile, AP reported that the top ticket prices for the FIFA World Cup Final on July 19 had risen from $8,680 before December’s tournament draw to $10,990 during the latest ticket sales phase this week, representing an increase of more than 25 percent.

For the same game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Category 2 tickets had risen from $5,575 to $7,380 and Category 3 tickets had gone up from $4,185 to $5,785 during the same period.

Elsewhere, only tickets costing $2,735 were available for the U.S. Men’s National Team opener against Paraguay in Inglewood, California, on June 12, while the opening games for fellow co-hosts Mexico and Canada had increased by several hundred dollars between December and this week.

FIFA is employing dynamic pricing for the first time at a FIFA World Cup this summer, as well as having its own resale market where it collects 15 percent from both the buyer and seller, and charging increased prices for parking spaces at the stadiums. The pricing model drew such ire from fans who complained that they were being priced out of attending the tournament that FIFA relented by making several hundred $60 tickets available to each participating federation for each match.

Ticket Milestones

Despite the anger, FIFA reported in December that 150 million ticket requests had been made in the first three weeks of December’s random selection ticket draw, with fans from more than 200 countries submitting interest.

“The FIFA World Cup 2026 is set to be the greatest and most inclusive show on the planet, with more than 150 million tickets already requested in only the first 15 days, making this edition 30 times oversubscribed — a true showcase of incredible demand from fans from over 200 countries,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the time. “This overwhelming response from passionate fans is a true representation of how our game is loved globally — we are going to make history in North America when we bring the world together like never before in a celebration of unity and the best of football.”

Infantino has defended the governing body’s cut on resale tickets, saying that the practice was a legal commercial activity under U.S. law, although a number of European countries have laws that require resale tickets to be sold for face value or by authorized partners.

It comes as the full lineup of teams and match schedule for the 2026 FIFA World Cup were officially confirmed earlier this week, following the conclusion of the continental and intercontinental play-offs. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sweden, Czechia, Türkiye, Congo DR and Iraq were the final six national teams to qualify for the tournament.