With just one week until the 2026 World Cup kicks off, FIFA's long-standing promise of a completely sold-out tournament is colliding with a starkly different reality. President Gianni Infantino declared in February that "every match is already sold out," yet thousands of tickets remain available across multiple platforms, and prices for less desirable fixtures have tumbled well below face value. The disconnect between official messaging and on-the-ground data has ignited accusations of mismanagement, secretive pricing, and even a state-level investigation into FIFA's ticket practices.
BBC Sport analysis reveals that on a recent Saturday, nearly 74,000 tickets were listed across 86 of the 104 group-stage matches—hardly the picture of a sell-out event. By midweek, that figure had swung wildly, dipping to 22,000 before bouncing back to 37,000, suggesting more than just natural fan demand at play. Particularly struggling are matches involving smaller footballing nations, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Qatar, Cape Verde vs Saudi Arabia, and Congo DR vs Uzbekistan, where entire blocks of seats sit unsold at official channels.
The root of the chaos lies in FIFA's opaque and seemingly erratic pricing strategy. Throughout the initial ballot and even subsequent sales phases, no comprehensive price structure was ever published. Fans who entered their payment details blindly discovered the cost only when charged, often to their shock. As the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey alleged in their subpoena, FIFA "artificially inflated prices" and "misled fans" by withholding critical information, then later injecting new, more expensive ticket categories into stadium maps without warning.
The investigation, officially launched last week, aims to unravel a process that one legal filing likened to a game of "pin the tail on the donkey." According to the attorneys general, some supporters were even charged for higher-tier seats only to be issued tickets in lower categories, further away from the action. The subpoena demands that FIFA explain how it determined its pricing and why fans were kept in the dark for so long. FIFA, as is its habit throughout this sales cycle, has not responded to requests for comment.
Compounding the confusion is the shifting inventory on official and secondary marketplaces. FIFA's own resale portal—where it tacks on a 15% fee from both buyer and seller—shows thousands of face-value tickets, but availability mysteriously dropped by half in a matter of hours last weekend, only to rebound days later. Independent monitoring by TicketData indicates that as those tickets vanished from FIFA's site, a similar surge appeared on SeatGeek, a secondary platform with which FIFA claims no partnership.
The pattern of those SeatGeek listings deepens the intrigue. Rather than random single seats, batches of tickets appeared in continuous rows with incremental pricing—each row a few dollars more expensive than the one behind—priced well below face value. For a low-demand fixture like Congo DR vs Uzbekistan, rows of tickets behind the goal were offered between $250 and $296, significantly less than the official $380 face value. Observers have questioned whether this structured pricing suggests a deliberate institutional seller offloading inventory.
While SeatGeek has denied any direct agreement with FIFA, it does not preclude the possibility that the governing body or one of its commercial partners is using the platform independently. The same erratic behavior has been noted on StubHub and VividSeats, where listings multiply even as FIFA warns that tickets bought outside official channels might be canceled.
The financial and reputational stakes are enormous. Empty seats at a World Cup—the most-watched sporting event on the planet—would be a glaring embarrassment, particularly after FIFA priced many host-nation games at luxury levels. Only two of the nine matches featuring the USA, Canada, or Mexico are officially sold out; the opening match between Mexico and South Africa still has over 500 seats available at $2,273 apiece. For less prestigious clashes, the disparity between FIFA's aspirational pricing and fan willingness to pay has created a glut of unsold inventory.
Analysts warn that FIFA's approach risks a repeat of the 2025 Club World Cup, where tickets were eventually dumped at knock-down prices to fill stadiums. Already, secondary-market prices for the lower-tier World Cup games have cratered, with some seats going for a third below their official cost. This dynamic not only undermines Infantino's "sold out" narrative but also casts doubt on FIFA's ability to manage a 48-team, three-nation tournament without visible empty sections.
The investigation by the New York and New Jersey attorneys general could force long-overdue transparency. As one observer quoted in the BBC report noted, "The ticket buying process has been like a game of pin the tail on the donkey, one where you do not know how much it costs to play." Until FIFA provides clear answers, the final week before the opening whistle will be shadowed by uncertainty and the specter of half-empty stands.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport.
