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- FootBiz newsletter #129: How World Cup ticket prices will help secure Gianni Infantino's re-election
FootBiz newsletter #129: How World Cup ticket prices will help secure Gianni Infantino's re-election
Plus: Serie A's planned match in Australia comes under serious doubt
Ed Malyon & Matt Hughes
December 16, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
If you haven’t heard yet, then presumably you’ve been living on a different rock floating around a different ball of gas somewhere else in the universe, but World Cup tickets are expensive.
Offensively expensive. But this is about as much of a surprise as FIFA handing the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without a vote — welcome to modern football governance, where there is no oversight and no repercussions.
Until someone successfully does something about ‘double hatters’, the governing bodies who are allowed to preside over regulation while also profiting from competitions, the disregard for fans will only continue as FIFA gets more emboldened by its strength and more detached from its mission.
First, a reminder for those who aren’t as lost in the FIFAverse as we are that FIFA’s president is voted for by the 211 members associations. The president knows that if he can keep them voting for him then he will continue in power.
Of course, to stay in power he will need to do something to earn those votes but that is fine when you are the one who decides when the money tap gets turned on. Infantino has been criticised by nearly everyone in football recently for his conduct, the use of the World Cup and its stage as a political tool for self-advancement, and the price gouging masterclass that the 2026 tournament has become, but when he distributes the expected $11bn windfall from next summer’s competition back to FIFA member associations, many of whom rely almost exclusively on these handouts, he will be elected yet again.
Infantino’s ‘Peace Prize’ attracted global criticism and mockery
Even though FIFA has term limits, it has had just three presidents in the last 50 years. So imagine Gianni Infantino’s joy when he recently found out that his first three-and-a-bit years as president didn’t count towards his term limit (because FIFA said so) thus allowing him to stay in place until 2031… at the very least.
So yeah, expensive tickets go towards securing Infantino’s position. That’s what matters. Not that supporters will be paying multiples more for tickets than at any major tournament in history, and that’s before the hotels have ramped up their prices, and the food, and the flights. America is the most brazenly capitalist country on Earth, something most people probably knew but which the football world is about to find out in the most aggressive way possible.
Indeed, it is not confined to football. And not to make any excuses for FIFA’s pricing but a couple of weeks ago I looked at going to see the Chicago Bears host the Pittsburgh Steelers on a pleasant autumnal Sunday. The cheapest ticket available was $600+ and so I quickly closed the tab, thinking better of spending $1200 before I’ve even left the house, and watched it at home with friends instead.
In a place where everyone is so accustomed to being bled dry for every last dollar, where people don’t really matter but business does, there has been something of a surprised response to overseas outrage from those who still view the World Cup as a great public good, a quadrennial footballing jamboree for everyone.
It has not been that way for a while, but somehow even after the nonsense of Qatar this is the tournament where it became obvious to even the most casual of observers.
Some of these prices will go down when the full raft of tickets have gone on sale. Many of the group games are pretty uninteresting, likely to lack jeopardy and will be significantly cheaper come June next year. Supply and demand is keeping the prices high right now and will ensure some drop later, but the base level set by FIFA was many multiples higher than promised and as cynical as it comes.
It’s not a topic that’s going to go away but it is one that still bristles many in football.
