The 2026 World Cup is supposed to be the grandest football tournament in history, spread across three countries with 48 teams and more games than ever before. So why does the whole ticketing situation feel like it was organised on the back of a napkin during a very long lunch?
Prices on the secondary market have been falling, availability keeps shifting, and there is a general lack of clarity about who actually has tickets, how many are left, and what they are genuinely worth. For a tournament of this scale, that is a strange place to be at this stage. Usually the problem with World Cup tickets is that they cost a fortune and nobody can get hold of them. This time around it feels oddly different.
The concern, and it is a legitimate one, is that some of those enormous American stadiums end up looking half empty on match day. That would be a proper nightmare for FIFA, for the host nations and frankly for football as a whole. Nobody wants to see a World Cup group game being played in front of thousands of vacant seats while the broadcast cameras do their best to avoid showing the gaps. It happened at various points in Qatar and the image was not great.
The counterargument is that prices dropping could actually be a good thing if it means more genuine fans can afford to go. Watching football at a World Cup should not be reserved exclusively for corporations and people with an expense account the size of a Premier League transfer fee. If falling prices bring in real supporters who actually care about the football, then perhaps the market sorting itself out is no bad thing.
The real issue is the uncertainty. Fans trying to plan trips to the United States, Canada or Mexico need clarity on costs and availability, and right now they are not getting it. Hopefully FIFA and the relevant organisers get a proper grip on this soon, because the tournament itself has every chance of being fantastic and it would be a shame to let a ticketing mess overshadow it.
Let me know your thoughts.