October 3 – FIFA, has issued its first, and surely not last warning to fans prior to the 2026 World Cup urging them to not purchase tickets from ‘unofficial ticketing websites’.
Unauthorised resale sites have already been popping up on the Internet and have started advertising ticket availability for the tournament that will be hosted in the US, Canada, and Mexico bit for which no official ticketing process has begun.
A FIFA spokesperson said: “FIFA encourages any fan wishing to purchase tickets for the FIFA World Cup 2026 to be wary of non-FIFA official ticketing websites that claim to be selling tickets already and only purchase tickets from the official and legitimate source (fifa.com/tickets) from late 2025.
While FIFA is determined to keep ticket sales orderly and in-house, it is inevitable that a black market will appear, especially in the United States where resale ticketing outlets proliferate.
In many cases, these resale sites use the practice of surge pricing that invariably prices out the regular fan.
Ticketing sites are not the only other problem though as scalpers use other media platforms, as well as selling tickets outside the stadiums to separate fans and their hard-earned money. As witnessed by the chaos of Conmebol’s Copa America final in Miami where ticketless fans charged a stadium, FIFA needs to be prepared.
In Qatar 2022, a special law was passed for the World Cup that granted FIFA exclusive rights to sell match tickets. Under that law, scalpers faced fines of up to 10 times the face value of the tickets being sold illegally.
FIFA had warned fans that they would not be allowed to enter the stadium if the name on the tickets did not match their identity, however with 70,000 fans descending on stadiums within 30 minutes of kick-off that regulation is often unenforceable.
With ticketing sites the norm in the United States, FIFA will find itself under immense pressure to make sure that the ordinary football fan is not subject to price gouging. With the United States still seen as a fresh market for the world’s game, the governing body will need to ensure that there is fairness around the ticketing process.
Contact the writer of this story, Nick Webster, at moc.l1732323460labto1732323460ofdlr1732323460owedi1732323460sni@o1732323460fni1732323460