Going to North America '26: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

I think there are some others, including the Argentina matches. But yes, now that we can see the actual matchups, 80% of them, or more, should be easy to get, and maybe cheaper or much cheaper than “ face value” on resale, especially if you wait.

 

Did anyone else notice during the draw show that Infantino said there were 7 million tickets up for sale and that one of the other presenters said that they had sold nearly 2 million tickets? If true, that seems to confirm rumors that FIFA put up fewer tickets for sale than announced during the first 2 lotteries.

 

World Cup prices update:

Final Category 1

Old Price: 7875 USD
New Price: 8680 USD

 

Up from $6370 in the first sale.

 

Well, he was both exaggerating and lying if he said there were 7 million tickets for sale. According to FIFA's own stadium capacity numbers, there are about 6.7 million seats available for this World Cup. And of course, not all of those are for sale. Corporate sponsors, FIFA, VIPs, etc will take a chunk of the 6.7 mil.

 

I was there in Marseille that day and it's incredibly ignorant and insulting to try and pin that on England fans. It was a planned ambush by Russian hooligans wearing MMA gear, attacking anyone they could identify as English, including families, in a coordinated manner that ensured they had numerical superiority in every "brawl" they started. 90% of people they attacked had no interest in fighting, some drunk people fought back but that was self defence as much as anything.

The one thing the British police have done well in the last few decades is football hooliganism. British football hooligans are nearly all known by the police, and every time there's an international tournament taking place, they have to hand their passport to their local police station for the full duration of the tournament. It's been this way for years.

Actual stats show that English fans are some of the better behaved in Europe these days, but once you gain a reputation, it's extremely difficult to shake it.

 

All based on hype because the only thing confirmed after this weekend was the kickoff time. Since you’ve been reliable… any news on any matches costing less than any of the past phases? Like those pot 3 v pot 4 games? I know this is fifa so they’re likely not to drop. I imagine the resell market will likely dictate the rise and fall of prices

 

I'm only going on what I've seen from some Scots following their team. Including some that have passed out drunk and missed the entire match. Of course that is only a small minority but the idea that Scotland or Ireland somehow bring the best atmosphere is nonsense. I can't comment directly on Ireland in the same way as I haven't seen them in a tournament.

I was very pleased to see Hearts win today. It would be amazing if they won the SPL. I genuinely wish Scotland well in this World Cup, it would be great if you did well.

I've got to hand it to Germans as being the best European supporters I've seen. Being able to make up funny chants in English as well as German is impressive. Friendly, welcoming and quite charming overall. I saw fights between their supporters and Ukrainians before their match in Lille in 2016 so no-one is perfect, although I reckon that was more the Ukrainians.

 

Prices for group stage matches have not been updated yet. Just some KO round matches, and none of them went down.

 

I don't think that will be a problem in the World Cup. I remember talking to an Englishman during the World Cup in Germany and we were talking about the violence of some English supporters, which was still a problem back then but much reduced from what it was. I commented that we didn't get the problems when English supporters came over to Australia for cricket. He explained that Australia was expensive to get to and it was mainly well off people who could afford to go. Airlines like Ryanair at the time were offering very cheap fares where the taxes exceeded the fare and a lot of people paid these fares, travelled on the day of the game with no accommodation (unless it was a police cell) and went home after a day drinking and causing trouble. In effect he reckoned we had a better class of person travelling to Australia than you got travelling to Europe. I reckon that factor will play big in this World Cup. The problem with violent supporters is nothing like it was 30 years ago and the costs of getting to the USA will stop the small minority left that wants to cause trouble from getting there,

 

I love football but hell are there 50k+ people in this world willing to pay that? Damn

 

For a World Cup Final in NY?... absolutely! Super Bowls sell out every year at those prices.

 

Cat3 please

 

Maybe you’re all onto something. Maybe the reason Infantino and Trump are loving each other is because they had a brilliant idea: Infantino sells 1 million extra tickets, Trump makes sure those 1 million people can’t enter the country, and they split the profit.

 

Old: 3795 USD
New: 4185 USD

 

Okay, I wasn’t going to chime in on this topic but now I’m curious what stats those are?! I’m German, but I live in England and have seen games both in the German fan section and the English one. The atmosphere in the latter is definitely a more rowdy (at times bordering on aggressive). People are happy when England are winning, but I heard them yelling and shouting obscenities at their own team when it was tied or behind (including some racist stuff towards non-white players). For the Euro 2024 we had neutral tickets near the English fans and had plenty of them around us too. They heard us speak German so we were the target of their anger when Switzerland scored first. It didn’t go beyond them emptying their beers on us when England scored, but we were honestly just relieved Switzerland didn’t win. - I also had Danish friends attend England - Denmark in Wembley for Euro 2020 and they were harassed by English fans on their way home (something I don’t get, the other team already lost so why bother them?)…

Yes, there’s black sheep among German fans too, and there’s many lovely people and families among English fans also; on this forum I’m sure you’re all nice blokes. But I do strongly believe the percentage of scummy people among English fans is higher than for other teams, at least in my very personal experience. It’s still a majority, but a larger majority than elsewhere.

I also think the drinking culture here is different from elsewhere in Europe (and again, I live in the UK so I know what I’ve seen over the years), and while there’s drunk people fighting everywhere in the world, I think it’s a bit more common here. There’s a reason why you can’t take your beer to the ranks in Premier League stadiums… For what it’s worth, I have a close friend who’s security at Oktoberfest in Munich, and he also says the English are over-represented among drunk troublemakers (“they just drink too much too quickly and are more likely to get aggressive”). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely country with wonderful people, but to say English football fans are the same as everyone else or even “some of the better behaved in Europe” seems a bit of a stretch.

 

This makes sense. Venues will still matter as well, and this would apply to your example of Belgium - New Zealand. Less popular matches in Mexico, Canada and parts of the US may still be hard to get tickets due to demand. That said, the upward pressure on “dynamic pricing” should be constrained for any matches featuring less prominent teams.

 

Right, he rounded up. And we can check that number. What interested me more though, was the number of tickets sold: less than 2 million. I am sure they would have rounded that up/exaggerated as much as possible. It looks like there is some serious demand manipulation going on, as many expected. Just waiting for that flood of tickets in the FCFS.

 

More like the downward pressure of dynamic pricing will be crushing the current prices. Last minute has got to be the play there.

 

This was our only cat 1 seating of the tournament and 2nd level. I got these in the last minute phase I think a month before the tournament. Cat 1 can be boring and probably affected my perception. Behind the goal with the French fans was probably a blast. We were also drained from flying from Sochi with little sleep the night before and forced ourselves to tour the gardens with the fountains and museum in the morning... St Petersburg was a late add to the trip that zonked us for the rest of the tournament. We should of slept in and skipped the sightseeing.

 

Very good point. FIFA's description of the Last Minute Sales Phase: "Closer to the tournament, fans will be able to purchase any remaining inventory on a first come, first served basis." The wording here is slippery, and lets you infer that they will try to sell all tickets in the previous phase (the upcoming Random Selection Draw), and that only the unsold tickets from that phase will carry over. But, as you point out, they may very well hold back a bunch of tickets for the FCFS phase.

 

*$6,730.

 

Well, we are going to see, it seems. But it looks like there may be around 5,000,000 tickets left unsold still, minus sponsor/federation/hospitality tickets. FIFA has been manipulating supply and demand to sell tickets at inflated prices to a small fanatical subset of the overall audience.

 

I'm anxious to see what happens to the price for the first USA match in LA vs Paraguay. It was set so high before, I'm pretty sure the avialable tickest didn't sell out during the first two phases. At least they were slower to sell than other matches. Not sure if Paraguay is enough of a draw to keep that price.

 

The most overpriced match in World Cup history. Followed by many others this time.