4 days ago
8
ARTICLE AD BOX
FIFA president Gianni Infantino during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)
The run-up to this year’s FIFA World Cup has seen the world body being criticised by fans as well as fan groups over the high prices for the tickets for the marquee event. While fans groups from Great Britain have been vocal about the high pricing of the World Cup tickets, FIFA president Gianni Infantino made a jibe at British football fans amid defending the high ticket prices for the World Cup. While Infantino spoke about how the last World Cup in Qatar was the first World Cup, where no British fans were arrested, a factually incorrect statement, the FIFA president also shared how the last World Cup saw no incidents once the tournament started.
“When the ball started rolling and the magic started we had virtually no incidents. For the first time in history also, no Brit was arrested during a World Cup. Imagine! This is something really, really special. So it was a celebration, it was a party, and the next one in the United States, Canada and Mexico will be exactly the same. People want occasions to meet, to come together, to spend time, to celebrate, and this is what we try to give them.” Infantino said during his speech at the World Economic forum at Davos, Switzerland.
As per Sky Sports, Infantino made an incorrect statement with data showing that the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010 also saw no arrest of British fans. According to the Sky Sports report, the FIFA World Cup in 2006 in Germany saw 711 arrests of British fans with only 25 arrests of British fans happening in the 2014 and 2018 World Cups together.
The Football Supporters Association criticised Infantino’s jibe at England fans and issued a statement. “While we’ve got Mr Infantino’s attention, we’d like to point out that rather than making cheap jokes about our fans, he should concentrate on making cheap tickets.” The Football Supporters Association said in a statement.
The recent months have seen FIFA announcing ticket rates for the 2026 FIFA World Cup to be hosted by USA, Canada and Mexico with the ticket prices seeing an increase across the range of almost 500 percent as compared to the 2022 Qatar World Cup. As per FIFA announcement last year, the cheapest tickets available for either England or Scotland fans would have cost 134 pounds with the ticket prices for England’s match against Croatia and Scotland against Brazil bearing the minimum ticket price of 198 pounds. The group stage prices for this year’s World Cup are up to three times of the price of tickets for the 2022 Qatar World Cup with the cheapest ticket for the final in New Jersey being priced at 3,119 pounds.
Following the criticism for high priced tickets, the world body had introduced a number of cheaper tickets priced at 45 pounds for all the 104 matches for the 2026 World Cup. Those tickets are available through national federations and only represent around ten percent of the tickets being allocated to each national association and less than one percent of the overall capacity of the stadiums for each World Cup match.
Infantino defended the pricing of the tickets in his speech. “The tickets are not cheap. We were hammered. I was hammered, I should say, because of the ticket prices, because they are so expensive. And the main critics were from Germany and England, of course. Now, No 1 in ticket requests is the US. No 2, Germany, No 3, England, because everyone wants to come and to participate. Every match will be sold out. Because of FIFA’s ticket resale platform, those tickets will probably be resold at even higher prices,” said Infantino.
English (US) ·