‘Gouged’: World Cup fans to pay ‘insane’ US$150 for train ticket to stadium from New York

NEWARK – World Cup fans will have to pay US$150 (S$191) – more than 10 times the normal price – for the quick round-trip train between New York and the Meadowlands Sports Complex when its MetLife Stadium hosts the tournament’s final and seven earlier matches, local officials said on April 17, drawing outrage.

The 56km round trip for visitors to the venue in New Jersey, just outside New York City, usually costs US$12.90.

“We are going to charge US$150 for our round-trip ticket on our system. So from New York to MetLife, MetLife back to New York,” said Kris Kolluri, president and chief executive officer of NJ Transit.

Just 40,000 train tickets will be available for the eight matches at the stadium, but driving will be even more expensive.

Limited parking options at US$225 a space will be available there for fans with disabilities and in a nearby mall for other supporters, according to the JustPark site.

New York resident Guy Dixon, 42, told AFP: “I feel like that’s an embarrassment and shame, and it’s taking advantage of the fans.”

New Jersey’s recently sworn-in Governor Mikie Sherrill defended the state transit organisation’s policies, saying on X that “FIFA put zero dollars towards transporting World Cup fans”.

The deal between football’s world governing body FIFA and the previous New Jersey leadership also “eliminated parking” at the stadium, requiring the rail service to transport four times as many fans as it usually does, she said.

“This agreement will cost NJ Transit at least US$48 million, while FIFA is positioned to make US$11 billion during the World Cup.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also wrote on social media on April 14 that FIFA should foot the bill for transport costs to World Cup venues.

But the governing body, which is already facing severe criticism over its sky-high prices for match tickets, called New Jersey’s move the first of its kind.

World Cup chief operating officer Heimo Schirgi said the decision to “arbitrarily set elevated prices and demand FIFA absorb these costs is unprecedented”.

“No other global event, concert or major sporting promoter has faced such a demand. While FIFA is projected to generate approximately US$11 billion in revenue – not profit, as the governor incorrectly claims – FIFA has always been a not-for-profit organisation,” he added.

It said previously that the original host-city agreements “required free transportation for fans to all matches”. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, fans could use the Doha Metro for free with their match-day tickets.

A French supporter group, meanwhile, called the pricing “completely insane”.

“Every day there’s bad news about transportation, you really have to wonder how far this madness is going to go,” said Guillaume Aupretre, a spokesman for the Irresistibles Francais fan organisation.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul also took aim at the reported price hike.

“Charging over US$100 for a short train ride sounds awfully high to me,” she wrote on X.

Some US$100 million in US federal funding has been allocated to host cities for transit-network costs, including US$8.7 million for Boston and Massachusetts, and US$10.4 million for the New York-New Jersey area, according to local media reports.

England’s Football Supporters’ Association chief Thomas Concannon told the BBC “every single thing coming out of this tournament so far is just fans getting fleeced”.

“The price is obviously astronomical in terms of what you would expect to pay going to a match,” he said.

“We weren’t expecting to be gouged.”

Train tickets aside, FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended high ticket prices for the World Cup by saying on April 17 that the event is the organisation’s only source of income every four years.

“What many people don’t know, because of course we generate billions in a World Cup, people don’t know FIFA is a not-for-profit organisation, which means all the revenue we generate, we invest them in the organisation of the game, in 211 countries all over the world,” he said.

“Three quarters of (those countries) probably would not be able to have organised football without the grants we could give them. So we always try to find the right balance.”

A check at the secondary-market ticket site StubHub on April 17 showed that the most inexpensive ticket for the US team’s opener on June 12 against Paraguay at the SoFi Stadium was listed at US$1,359, while tickets in the lower bowl of the Los Angeles venue were priced as high as US$14,000 per seat.

For the World Cup final on July 19, a single ticket in the upper deck was priced at US$8,860 and as much as US$25,000 in the lower bowl. AFP, REUTERS