With one week remaining before the FIFA World Cup 2026 kicks off, the tournament's ticket situation has descended into confusion — falling prices, shifting availability, and a governing body that has yet to offer any clear answers.
Sold out? Not quite
FIFA president Gianni Infantino declared in February that every match was already sold out, with only a small reserve held back for last-minute sales. The reality on the ground tells a very different story.
Independent tracking site TicketData reported close to 74,000 tickets available across 86 of the 104 matches on a single Saturday. That figure subsequently dropped to roughly 32,000 within hours, then fell further to 22,000 by Tuesday — a pattern that has raised more questions than it has answered.
FIFA has no difficulty shifting tickets for matches featuring Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, and Spain. But for games involving nations with a narrower global following — such as Bosnia-Herzegovina v Qatar, Cape Verde v Saudi Arabia, and Congo DR v Uzbekistan — demand has been far weaker than the governing body anticipated.
Even the tournament's opening fixture between Mexico and South Africa still had more than 500 seats available on FIFA's own face-value site, each listed at $2,273 (£1,725).
Prices well below face value
BBC Sport identified five lower-demand matches where tickets in the most desirable lower-bowl sections were being sold significantly below their official face value — on FIFA's own resale platform and on secondary marketplaces.
The most dramatic drop was found for Jordan v Algeria in Santa Clara. Two comparable seats in block 121, originally priced at $620 (£471), were available for £171 on FIFA's resale site — a reduction of 64 percent. The same seats appeared at £192 on SeatGeek and £172 on StubHub.
For Czech Republic v South Africa, tickets in block 122 with a face value of £342 were listed below £190 on both SeatGeek and StubHub.
Is FIFA offloading inventory on secondary sites?
Shortly after the number of available tickets dropped on FIFA's official platform, listings on SeatGeek increased — not as isolated single seats but as batches in specific row-by-row blocks, priced at regular incremental amounts. The pattern attracted attention on social media, and within 24 hours the SeatGeek availability appeared to contract again.
SeatGeek issued a statement distancing itself from any arrangement with FIFA:
