FIFA president Gianni Infantino defends World Cup ticket prices, cites ‘crazy’ demand

DUBAI – FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended controversial ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup, revealing that organisers have received a record 150 million requests for tickets in the past two weeks.

Speaking at the World Sports Summit in Dubai on Dec 29, he stressed that the revenue earned from next year’s tournament – scheduled to be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada – would be pumped back into football around the world.

Infantino’s comments were his first public remarks since the ticketing furore erupted earlier in December, with fan groups branding ticket prices as “extortionate” and “astronomical”.

They range from US$140 (S$180) to US$2,735 for group-stage matches, and from US$4,185 to US$8,680 for the final on July 19 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

FIFA, football’s world governing body, later responded to the criticism by

announcing that a portion of tickets on sale would be priced at US$60

.

“In the last few days, you’ve probably seen there is a lot of debate about ticketing and ticket prices,” Infantino told the Dubai conference on Dec 29.

“We have six, seven million tickets on sale and we started two weeks ago. I can tell you in two weeks, 15 days, we received 150 million ticket requests. This shows how powerful the World Cup is.”

Infantino also said that the majority of ticket requests had come from the United States, followed by requests from Germany and Britain.

“If you think that in 100 years of history of the World Cup, FIFA has sold 44 million tickets in total, so in two weeks for the next World Cup, we could have filled 300 years of World Cups,” he added. “This is absolutely crazy.

“And what is important, what is crucial is that the revenues that are generated from this are going back to the game all over the world and FIFA is the only organisation in the world that finances football in the entire world.

“Without FIFA there will be no football in 150 countries in the world. There is football thanks to these revenues that we generate from the World Cup, which we reinvest all over the world.”

Fan group Football Supporters Europe have been among the most prominent critics of FIFA’s pricing strategy for 2026.

The group said earlier in December that tickets would cost almost five times more than those for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Apart from the topic of ticket prices, Infantino also spoke on other issues and hinted at potential changes to the 2026 World Cup, including a possible adjustment to the offside rule.

FIFA has experimented with various innovations in its competitions in 2025, like the use of a “green card” to request for video assistant referee (VAR) reviews at the Under-20 World Cup and Arab Cup, referee body cameras at the Club World Cup, and the eight-second rule for goalkeepers.

Referee body cameras and the eight-second rule are currently in place in the English Premier League.

Infantino also emphasised that the officiating in games is something that FIFA is constantly trying to improve.

“We introduced VAR to make football fairer, to give referees the chance to correct a mistake that millions of people, both at home and in the stadium, might have seen,” he said, as quoted by website World Soccer Talk.

“We are continuously improving VAR with increasingly advanced technology to help referees make the right decision.”

And with the aim of “making the game more offensive and attractive”, he suggested that offsides could be altered in the near future.

“We are considering the offside rule, which has evolved over the years and currently requires the attacker to be behind the defender, level with him. Perhaps in the future, the attacker would have to be completely ahead to be considered offside,” Infantino added.

“We are also evaluating measures to prevent time-wasting. It is important for the game to flow properly, so interruptions must be minimised.” AFP, REUTERS