Sky-high World Cup ticket prices alarm U.S. authorities; Explanations requested from FIFA

Astronomical prices for the FIFA World Cup have forced prosecutors in New York City and New Jersey to launch an investigation. On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport jointly announced that they are seeking documents from tournament organizer FIFA regarding its pricing practices for matches at MetLife Stadium.

The issue concerns ticket prices and seating arrangements, with authorities saying that “fans may have been misled about the seat locations they were purchasing, and FIFA’s public statements and ticket releases may have contributed to rising prices.”

They will investigate FIFA’s ticketing process and seating maps at MetLife, which they say were changed after fans had already purchased tickets. Initially, the stadium was divided into four zones (Categories 1 through 4), with the lower-numbered zones offering better seating areas.

However, after ticket sales began, FIFA created “new zones” and added a front section to each category. Fans complained that buyers of tickets in the new zones were excluded from those seats and instead assigned less desirable seats, including seats far from the field or behind the goals.

According to The New York Times, FIFA ticket prices for group-stage matches in the United States started at $60 for a limited number of tickets and went up to more than $600. Face-value tickets for the final reached as high as $10,990.

Fans were already angered by the high prices, which quickly increased exponentially on resale platforms, including listings reaching $2 million for the final. In response to the backlash, last week New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced an initiative to sell $50 tickets to city residents.

“Being honest about ticket sales is not complicated,” said New Jersey prosecutor Davenport. “But FIFA has turned buying a FIFA World Cup ticket into a mess of confusion, artificial scarcity, and excessively high prices,” she added.

Her counterpart, New York Attorney General Letitia James, said that residents “deserved a fair opportunity to obtain affordable tickets” and that “fans should be able to trust that the tickets they buy are the ones they receive.”

FIFA did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment regarding the investigation. The organization had previously told CNN that “its pricing strategy includes a wide range of prices and categories, reflecting market demand for each match.”

Earlier this month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta also requested information from FIFA “to assess whether California law may have been violated” during the sales process.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, with matches to be played across all three countries, beginning on June 11. The first match in New Jersey is scheduled for June 13, with a total of eight matches planned there, including the final on July 19.

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