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

In a twisted sense, the next “fan friendly” World Cup will probably be Saudi Arabia.

 

I would emphasize some caution until we have an actual announcement of some tickets prices or process. “Dynamic pricing” means different things to different people. It could be different face values for different matchups (or adjusting the face values one time after the draw) but keeping those face values fixed once set. Or it could mean full unchecked dynamic modification of prices based on how many are left (hotel/airline style).

The tickets were always going to be expensive - everything in the US is expensive. And especially for event tickets, where people will readily pay well above what would ever be considered in Europe.

Realistically, if one million people want to go to a match, what’s the fair way to allocate tickets? It’s a one-off tournament, so there’s no way to restrict access to cheap tickets like you can with a club team (via season ticket memberships, rewarding past attendance at matches, etc). If the tickets are all $30, there will be some lucky winners in the random lottery but most people who want to go will be left paying $500 on StubHub or whatever the market will bear in the US. There’s nothing FIFA can do about that.

I think the best we can hope for is reasonable and non-dynamic tickets for the federation blocks. It’s up to the federations to allocate those tickets and in that case they can restrict access via passport, supporters club membership/status, and the various other methods they employ.

 

FIFA 2026 World Cup tickets hit the secondary market - Axios Philadelphia

Not really much news in the article but it is good to be reminded that when you purchase tickets from Stubhub the person selling you the ticket does not get paid until you enter the stadium.
So there really is not much incentive to post fake tickets.

 

That is terrible advice. FIFA has repeatedly asked fans to not engage with unauthorized ticket platforms.

Stubhub is not a FIFA ticketing partner, which was bought by ticket reseller Viagogo. The latter was sued many times in Europe, including by FIFA.

For 2018 WC, FIFA obtained a EU-wide injunction against Viagogo (June 2018):

As part of its efforts to protect the fans and prevent unauthorised ticket resales for the 2018 FIFA World Cup™ in Russia, FIFA filed a criminal complaint on 4 June 2018 based on a breach of the law on unfair competition against viagogo AG with the public prosecutor’s office in Geneva.​

For several months, Viagogo resold overpriced WC tickets: posting them for resale, even though it had less to offer, thus boosting prices within its platform. Viagogo's actions were identified earlier in a German lawsuit (January 2018) which banned it from reselling in Germany.

So, with nine days left before kickoff, FIFA declared all WC tickets resold by Viagogo as void... "once identified":

Tickets purchased via unauthorised distribution channels, including all tickets purchased through viagogo AG, will be cancelled once identified. FIFA reserves the right to refuse entry to the stadium to any holder of such tickets. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, FIFA and local authorities will conduct strict admission checks.​

Viagogo customers found themselves having wasted their time and travel expenses, holding onto tickets which would fail verification at the stadium gate.

 

That’s the official line from FIFA and always has been. But the reality is that using StubHub, Viagogo, etc is a reliable way to buy and sell World Cup tickets at, above, and below face value. In 99.9% of cases everything goes smoothly, and if there is a problem, you’ll never lose the money you paid for the ticket.

There’s no practical way for FIFA to prevent resale of tickets on these sites. It would require tying the tickets to a specific person at time of purchase, not allowing any changes once assigned, and then also confirming that the name on the ticket matches the ID produced at the stadium gates. FIFA hasn’t done any of this in the past.

We’ve seen these sort of controls for ultra high demand concerts like Taylor Swift, so it’s possible. But unlikely here, especially when there will be a lot of variance in demand and resale value across the 104 matches. Checking IDs and not allowing transfers might be worth it for the final, but it’s way too much trouble for a half-full Uzbekistan vs New Zealand.

 

If memory serves right, in Qatar, tickets could only be transferred via FIFA app - at face value with in-app settlement. How did the “secondary market” deal with that?

Seems like UEFA has a similar approach:
https://www.uefa.com/news-media/new...-stance-on-unauthorised-ticketing-ahead-of-f/

 

Wait a second. Did fans enter Russian stadiums with tickets sold by Viagogo?

FIFA got two injunctions against Viagogo in 2018, one for the German market, the other for the EU market. The German injunction was active 5 months before WC kickoff.

Why would you advice fans to purchase items which FIFA can void at anytime, as it happened in 2018?

 

Absolutely yes, fans bought and sold and successfully used tickets from StubHub, Viagogo, and other sites in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. I myself did, both as buyer and seller.

Of course there’s an element of risk involved, since it’s technically against the FIFA regulations to buy/sell tickets on those platforms. So you go in with your eyes open and have a backup plan.

I would always advise others to first make every effort they can to get tickets through the FIFA ticket portal and official resale platform. But for very high demand matches, you might simply never see a ticket available to buy on those. At that point, your options are:
-Don’t go to the match
-Pay above face value on StubHub and go to the match.

Which do you choose?

 

FIFA and UEFA use the same ticketing app. Basically, StubHub etc leverage the fact that you can transfer tickets to other people’s accounts as your “guests”. So if I list a ticket on StubHub and someone buys it, then StubHub sends me their email address and I transfer the ticket to that email and they can pull it into their FIFA account. Same process as if I was sending to a friend going to the game with me. You can even change the name on the ticket at any time. The buyer pays StubHub and then StubHub pays me after the game if there’s no incident.

For Qatar 2022, there was an additional wrinkle that you couldn’t transfer one ticket out of the original buyer’s account for each match. So if you had 6 tickets, you could only send 5 of them to guests. Some of the professional resellers just took that as a loss, but I also heard that some would provide account login info for individual throwaway accounts that contained that last ticket, which allowed it to be resold on their site. The scalpers operate at a high level of sophistication.

 

That's the institutional logic behind dynamic pricing. If there's a fixed ticket price that's below what demand would pay, the tickets get scooped up by professional resellers and you still end up with dynamic pricing in the 3rd party market, with the profits going to those resellers.

 

Exactly. If a match like Mexico-Argentina is selling for $700 in Cat 3 on StubHub, FIFA is just giving money to StubHub if they continue to sell Cat 3 tickets at $70.

If the match is truly that high demand, I don’t really object to dynamic price changes. We regular people are never going to see a $70 Cat 3 ticket at that point anyway. My main objection will be when FIFA sells “face value” tickets at $200 for TBD vs TBD and then slashes the “face value” to $50 when it comes out as Uzbekistan vs NZ. But of course the flip side is you can get a great deal if you wait, albeit for an undesirable match.

 

maybe you should better not write the things you found on the web and you‘ve got no clue about.
many people read here, and while we do not support viagogos of this world, we do not want to spread fake news or fake infos about tickets either

 

I guess the problem I see there is willing to reselling tickets that you know can be voided at the venue due to a *technicality*.

I mean, "paying above face value via a reseller" is really the worse option when a voided ticket is traded: buyer stays out of the venue in both scenarios, but one involved paying for a voided item. If the ticket is not voided, then price-gouging enters the chat.

Not saying you have done that. I just can see why Germany got an injunction against that reseller in January 2018.

 

What are you talking about brah? Facts: FIFA entered injunctions against Viagogo in 2018.

Tell me where is the fake news on that?

 

Just to be clear about that worst case scenario (voided ticket)… the buyer in that case would contact Viagogo for a replacement ticket. If Viagogo can’t find a replacement, then the buyer is refunded and seller doesn’t get paid.

Obviously if you discover your ticket doesn’t work at the stadium gate one hour before kickoff, then time is of the essence and that’s a stressful situation. But for very high profile events, Viagogo has a dedicated team to handle those issues. In the paper ticket days, they’d set up a desk at a nearby hotel lobby, where they’d handle those problems and buyers could make last minute purchases.

 

you first wrote: “Viagogo customers found themselves having wasted their time and travel expenses, holding onto tickets which would fail verification at the stadium gate.“ which is pure nonsense and nothing but fake news. in reality hardly any ticket was voided. if any at all

then you asked: “Wait a second. Did fans enter Russian stadiums with tickets sold by Viagogo?” which proves you’ve got absolutely no clue about it



edit: there are people on these boards with experience of up to ten world cups, let them warn the people what might work and what might not instead of judging on something you’ve read somewhere on the web

 

You are correct. Viagogo and StubHub have been a World Cup “tradition” since I can remember. I’m on my 7th World Cup. FIFA always makes a token effort to stop them and they just move the listings to the Irish site or another place where fifa can’t touch them. I don’t like it; but those are the facts.

Also, USA and Mexico populations have a deep tradition/culture of buying on the secondary market. Unlike Europe; here in North America buying on the secondary market is normal. Those sites will have a historical year in sales and profit. Again; it’s unfortunate… but it is what it is.

 

Nah buddy. I genuinely asked him to know what he thinks happened despite FIFA's public notice against Viagogo tickets.
FIFA specifically said:

Tickets purchased via unauthorised distribution channels, including all tickets purchased through viagogo AG, will be cancelled once identified. FIFA reserves the right to refuse entry to the stadium to any holder of such tickets. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, FIFA and local authorities will conduct strict admission checks.​

https://inside.fifa.com/tournaments...fifa-files-criminal-complaint-against-viagogo

None of us here can assert how many people were stopped at the gate in 2018 WC, right? We know however that FIFA said Viagogo tickets will be stopped at the gate. We also know that Stubhub North America remains owned by Viagogo, while Viagogo was forced to sell StubHub Europe. I wonder why.

Trying to shut down a conversation about unauthorized resellers and how FIFA dealt their unauthorized ticket resales can be interpreted as suspicious, though.

Does that make sense?

 

FIFAs dynamic pricing for CWC was two fold. They had Ticketmaster rip off the general public with TM dynamic pricing first.

But they also had dynamic pricing for supporter groups, RTBs and the Super Packs. Lowest priced match was M11 (Ulsan v Mamelody) cat1 $90, cat2 $60 and cat3 $45. Most expensive match M19 (Sounders v Atleti) 235, 145, 105.

we may see similar match “dynamic” pricing for 2026 from FIFA. I doubt we’ll see Ticketmaster since fifa doesn’t wanna share revenue.

 

just use search, in last 20 years we discussed black market on hundreds of pages here, you‘ll find it all including what you wrote, including how brazil blocked access to viagogo webistes from within the country, but also including how majority games in south aftica were available for peanuts there and much much more.

in short words, it is all part of the game. a lot of people buy there and get in with those tickets. as marienlah wrote, in some countries it is even normal and widely accepted, in the others it is a no-go and sometimes illegal as well. unfortunately not everyone has experience and time needed to get all tickets at FV so people are sentenced to secondary markets, hospitalities, right to buys and simmilar ripoffs.
that’ about it, any additional discussion would be nothing but pure waste of time

p.s, it is obvious you‘ve never been to the world cup, instead of trying to preach us your crap better read and learn. there is absolutely nothing you can tell us that we do not know.

 

It's all good man! It is obvious that I struck a nerve by just mentioning what FIFA did (or did not do) against Viagogo in 2018 WC.

I mean, it is not like knowing such precedent would hurt anyone's ticket resale business in 2026.

While FIFA stacks more paper via dynamic pricing, it got us right where it wants us: fighting over WC scraps thrown into its general ticket sale.

I just wonder how customers in Europe forced FIFA to go after resellers for price-gouging in 2018. It might be worth revisiting that.

 

unfortunately noone did anything .. it was all smokescreen for PR purposes only

 

Europe has stronger consumer laws than the US and consumers in Europe are price conscious and more united than the North American consumer. Like I stated earlier; it's culturally acceptable to buy from those platforms and I know i'm not going to change a culture with posts on Bigsoccer or anywhere else.

Having the World Cup in North America is the worst thing that happened to the normal fan. We will be abused and no one will care; not FIFA, not our governments or the Media. But, Hopefully we can all work together and share strategies to have a great experience like we do every 4 years.

 

One thing that affects decisions to go or not is not only the cost but also what you will experience. Those that go regularly usually have the means to do so. For some, who's nation may be competing either for the first time or the first time in a long time will be prepared to pay a premium to watch their nation. I decided it will be too expensive for me, but I'm in the planning stages to watch another porting event in the USA in March but as that will involve only one match day (and 3 games) and a stay in one or maybe two cities for a maximum of 11 days the cost is more affordable. I'll probably get away with around a $AUD12K bill compared to around $AU30K for a decent world cup trip (NB at 65 as I'll be next year I'm way to old to put up with cheap accommodation, 4 star minimum for me) . I paid around $AUD11K to attend Australia's first world cup in 32 years in 2006.

 

this sums it up perfectly