Today's Edition
(DPA)
World Cup ticket prices could drop in the weeks leading up to the tournament, with resale tickets now significantly cheaper than those still available direct from FIFA in many instances, including for the United States’ opener against Paraguay.
FIFA opened a new sales window on Thursday and for the co-hosts’ first match in Los Angeles on June 12, a Category 1 ticket on Friday was priced at $2,735.
But on FIFA’s resale platform, Category 1 tickets were available from $1,300 - less than half the price of a first-hand ticket.
US President Donald Trump was asked about tickets for that first game being in four figures by the New York Post on Thursday and said: "I wouldn’t pay that either.”
FIFA has controversially adopted a dynamic pricing strategy for its primary ticket sales and, if resale prices continue to remain cheaper, it could drive down the cost of those primary tickets.
Tickets were not showing as available for 10 matches on the primary ticketing site on Friday, including the final, the group stage game between Portugal and Colombia, a potential last-32 match involving Lionel Messi’s Argentina in Miami and the possible last-16 match between England and Mexico in Mexico City.
FIFA did not confirm whether that meant all tickets for those matches were now sold out or whether more might still be made available.
The cheapest Category 4 resale ticket available for the final on Friday was listed at $9,373, with the most expensive Category 1 tickets priced at $345,000.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino told his organization’s Congress last week there had been 500 million ticket requests.
"We sold 100% of the inventory that we put on the market, which is more or less 90% of the global inventory so far,” he added.
"And, of course, we are always putting tickets on the market. There are expensive tickets, yes, but there are also affordable tickets.”
He went further in defending the prices at a conference in Beverly Hills earlier this week, claiming they compared favourably even with tickets to attend US college sports events.
Despite President Trump’s comments on pricing, the head of his World Cup task force, Andrew Giuliani, told the Financial Times: "We don’t really believe in price controls.”
He added that sales were on a "pretty good pathway” with over 5 million tickets sold.
