This has not gone down well.
Following severe backlash, FIFA have announced new ‘Supporter Entry Tier’ World Cup tickets for qualified teams.
These tickets will cost £45 ($60) and will be available for each of the 104 games at next summer’s tournament, including the final.
They will be distributed to the football organisations for each country, who will decide which fans can avail of them.
However, these ‘Supporter Entry Tier’ tickets will only make up 10% of a country’s allocation.
As reported by Sky Sports, for England’s opener against Croatia only 750 of these tickets will be available for English supporters in a stadium of 94,000.
In a statement, FIFA said: “With demand in the current sales phase achieving 20 million ticket requests, FIFA has confirmed that fans of the national teams that have qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026 will benefit from a dedicated ticket pricing tier, which has been designed to make following their teams on football’s greatest stage more affordable.
“The newly introduced Supporter Entry Tier will be available at the fixed price of USD 60 per ticket for each of the 104 matches, including the final.”
FIFA had hoped this would quell some of the criticism that came their way when it was revealed that the cheapest tickets for the final would cost over £3,000.
But fans are not being swayed by what comes across as just a PR scheme.
