Al -Malab newspaper – The FIFA, headed by Swiss Gianni Infantino, faces a wave of sharp criticism for its controversial policy on the prices of the 2026 World Cup tickets, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The criticisms of “FIFA” from the fans of the game and political actors, where the International Federation was accused of “living in a parallel world”, and is indifferent to the interests of the masses or the purchasing power of the real fans.
FIFA has opened the door for pre -submitting for the championship tickets for 10 days, from Wednesday, exclusively for “Visa” card holders, with the possibility of applying to book tickets starting from October 1.
But the real crisis lies in what is known as “changing pricing”, a policy that relies on adjusting ticket prices according to the submission dates, which means that fans who give subsequent dates may pay more amounts to the same tickets that others have booked early.
2026 World Cup tickets at a variable price and limited options
The “variable pricing” policy differs from “dynamic pricing”, where the first is managed by a human factor and not through automatic algorithms, and is supposed to be less volatile than dynamic pricing.
However, this did not prevent criticism from escalating, especially in the absence of price transparency in the current stage of requests, according to the newspaper “The Independent”.
Ronan Evan, CEO of Football Forensic Football Organization, expressed his dissatisfaction with politics by saying: “We believe that FIFA sends a very wrong message by approving this policy in the World Cup.”
He added: “They claim that American laws do not allow other options, but it is difficult to believe this, this tournament will be expensive in all respects, whether to move inside the United States and enter the stadiums and even poor public transport, but the only factor that FIFA controls is the price of tickets and they could at least take a symbolic position for the benefit of the masses.”
He continued: “FIFA has huge financial reserves, and does not need to increase revenues from tickets, and unfortunately, it seems that it does not care about the masses or public opinion.”
Political campaign against “FIFA”: “Football is above greed”
For his part, Zoran Mamdani, a candidate for the presidency of the New York Municipality, launched a campaign entitled “Game Over Greed”, in which he demanded the cancellation of the current pricing policy.
The campaign demands include: abandoning variable pricing, imposing a ceiling on ticket prices in the secondary market, and allocating 15% of tickets to residents of local areas at reduced prices.
“It is time to put football over the greed, and to organize a World Cup that all New York population can bear its cost,” Mamdani said on his campaign site.
Problems of presentation and the absence of transparency
On social media, many fans expressed their confrontation with technical difficulties while trying to enter the prior tickets for the 2026 World Cup matches.
So far, FIFA has not made an official comment on these complaints or about the pricing policy.
