FIFA World Cup Ticketing: Feed the Greed | OneFootball

If you believed all the news hype Wednesday, tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup were made available to the general public for the first time! Cheapest tix only $60! Hooray!

Read the fine print

You see, you can’t actually purchase the tickets YET, unless you’re buying a hospitality package (more on that below). All you’re doing at this stage is putting your credit card number and other personal information into FIFA’s servers to secure entry into the VISA Presale Draw.

This pop-up prompt appears when you visit the World Cup website.

After the Presale Draw closes on September 19, we cool our jets until the Early Ticket Draw. If your Presale entry number comes up, you’ll have a window from October 27 through 31 during which you can purchase tickets. Restrictions apply, of course, blah blah blah.

How ticketing REALLY works. Four different draws.

Completing the Predraw entry process took me eleven different clicks and spawned three separate webpages from my original search on a web browser. Along the way I also had to:

So after doing all that, I got this:

👍 to that Privacy Policy

I don’t give FIFA credit for much, but with this Privacy Policy they scored a banger. As an organization hellbent on (soccer) world domination led by a creepy bald lawyer, I would not have expected such a human readable, crystal clear document. I encourage you to read through it. Section 14. Complaints is particularly hilarious.

So Far, Business as Usual

To be fair, this rigamarole with lotteries and draws etc. has been the norm with FIFA World Cup ticketing for decades. The convoluted process isn’t new, and won’t come as a surprise to anyone who attended previous tournaments. Heck, thousands of folks in past Cups never got their chance to buy tickets early and had to wait until general sales commenced.

But there is a new twist in 2026: dynamic pricing.

What’s Dynamic Pricing?

If you’ve ever tried to call an Uber on a Saturday night in a big city, or tried to buy an airline ticket around the Christmas holiday, then you’ve experienced dynamic pricing. It’s when a provider gauges demand, then increases cost of the service accordingly. It’s a black box process, mostly obfuscated from public review and difficult to predict or control. It’s also a fairly common practice in the United States among many industries, particularly concert ticketing.

It’s this ubiquity that gives FIFA the excuse to justify employing dynamic pricing for the first time in World Cup history. FIFA claims to be just following the norm, and conveniently ignores the fact that nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers are opposed to the practice.

What this means in effect is that the likelihood of seeing a match priced at $60 once you CAN buy a ticket is slim, particularly if that match has any of the traditional World Cup nations in it. Dynamic pricing will be in effect from the start. And trust me, the algorithm is faster than you or me.

If you’re the type who likes to wait until the last minute, be warned. The FIFA Club World Cup employed dynamic pricing this summer, with mixed results. Tickets for some undersold venues fell well below original list price (some as low as $15) on matchday. But FIFA learned their lesson, and has vowed that $60 is their floor. Prices won’t go lower.

Heimo Schirgi, FIFA World Cup COO (aka “The Mouth of Infantino”), had this to say: “I think the message is ‘Get your tickets early.’ Anything could happen.” In this context, “anything” = price increase. Because it can’t go lower.

What’s A Hospitality Package?

Of course, there’s no lottery to purchase a Hospitality Package. Simply put, this is a very expensive type of venue access. It grants premium seating with good views of the pitch (note: exact seat is not guaranteed) in exclusive areas of the stadium such as: Pitchside Lounge, VIP, Trophy Lounge, Champions Club, FIFA Pavilion. Free drinks, food, a “premium gift,” and freedom from the unwashed masses are included. Parking is not. Below are the three options:

A Funnel for Profit

For anyone concerned about FIFA’s use of dynamic pricing to maximize profit, Schirgi offers these words of comfort: “It’s key to highlight FIFA’s mission and FIFA’s objective of providing funding, providing opportunities, providing growth to our sport across all the 211 member associations. And as part of that mission … we’re looking at optimizing the revenue, but also optimizing attendance in the stadium, right? So, it’s always a balance between different factors.”

I feel so much better. Do you?