Infantino defends 2026 ticket pricing saying many will be touted on resale platforms

January 23 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has admitted that a significant number of 2026 World Cup ticket applicants intend to sell them on resale platforms for profit.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Infantino trumpeted that FIFA received 500 million ticket requests during the last sales phase for 2026 World Cup tickets, but acknowledged that some of those tickets will be acquired to simply sell on.

“In the U.S., it is perfectly legal to resell tickets on resale platforms – there is a law for that, so we have to allow (it),” said Infantino.  “So, you can be sure that these tickets, for which we’ll have to make a draw because every game will be sold out, will probably be resold at even higher prices. And this is incredible but it shows really the impact that (the World Cup) has.

FIFA’s own resale platform has come under fire: the platform allows tickets to be resold at sky-high prices, including a semi-final ticket that was listed for $213,000. FIFA takes a 15% ‘facilitation fee’from both the buyer and the seller.

“We had over 500 million ticket requests – half a billion ticket requests,” Infantino said. “And the tickets are not cheap. We were hammered – I was hammered, I should say – because of the ticket prices, because they are so expensive.”

“The main critics were from Germany and England, of course. Now, number one in ticket requests is US, number two Germany and number three England. Because everyone wants to come and to participate.”

Ticket prices range from $60 in the group stages to more than $8,000 for the World Cup final. The inventory of $60 tickets however is very limited and FIFA received global backlash for its pricing, which it defended as being the market-norm in the United States.

FIFA then introduced $60 tickets for every single match, but limited to 10% of the allocation to participating nations, a fraction of the about 6.5 million tickets on sale for the tournament.

Speculation is also mounting over the origin of the 500 million ticket requests, but FIFA has denied that the number has been pushed up by automated bots.

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