FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended the World Cup ticket prices, saying “if we are doing something wrong, everyone in North America is doing something wrong.”
FIFA initially set World Cup ticket prices starting at $140 for the expanded 48-team, 104-match tournament, which begins on Thursday. Regular tickets for the final in New Jersey on July 19 were originally priced as high as $8,680. Later, FIFA increased the final ticket prices to $10,990 and then to $32,970. Following criticism, the governing body made a limited number of $60 tickets available to national federations for their regular supporters.
Infantino said the average ticket price for the tournament was below $500 and comparable to prices seen during the playoffs of major American sports leagues. While that may be true in the resale market, it does not appear to reflect the original ticket prices. Infantino also said he was not concerned about investigations launched by attorneys general in California, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
According to Infantino, FIFA has no control over the secondary ticket market, where fans are seeing significantly higher prices for World Cup matches. He pointed to the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs as an example of rising ticket prices at major sporting events in the United States.
“We are very relaxed about it because before starting to sell 6.5 million or 7 million tickets we check what we do with the best lawyers,” he said. “We welcome every investigation.”
Infantino also acknowledged that FIFA could not influence U.S. authorities to grant entry to Somali referee Omar Artan and said people “should chill.”
“We are not the kings of the world,” Infantino said.
