FIFA's World Cup ticket process leaves Seattle fans frustrated and confused
The FIFA Men's World Cup 2026 kicks off in less than a week, but the discussion surrounding tickets is far from over.
Seats are still open for many matches. In Seattle, tickets can be purchased directly from FIFA's last-minute sales phase, the FIFA reselling portal or the secondary market. Some fans feel burned by FIFA's category seating model. Others are still waiting for a seat assignment, despite paying for their ticket months ago.
The ticket frustrations aren't unique to fans in Seattle. There have been widespread fan complaints across North America in the lead-up to this year's World Cup, and some state leaders in the U.S. have taken action.
In May, The Athletic reported that California's attorney general had requested information from FIFA about their ticketing practices to determine if altering the seating zones prior to assigning fans a seat had violated state law. A few weeks later, the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey launched an investigation into similar ticketing topics, which included issuing subpoenas for a variety of information related to fan complaints.
The Washington state attorney general's office said they have received consumer complaints about FIFA's ticketing practices but have a longstanding policy of not confirming or denying questions about potential investigatory matters."
FIFA did not respond to questions about their World Cup ticket pricing strategy or how many tickets are left in Seattle.
Where things stand
In mid-May, data drawn from secondary marketplaces showed that the average cost to get into Seattle's group stage matches has decreased almost 30% over the last 30 days.
"The most surprising thing is that over the past week, the prices have been relatively flat," Keith Pagello, the founder of TicketData.com, said. "I think most people thought that they were going to go down, some people thought they might go up, but no one adamantly said it was going to be in the same place a week later."
Pagello said he thinks the first two days of the tournament will provide a lot of insight, especially the first U.S. game on June 12.
"If tickets just completely nosedive for that, I think that'll be a bellwether for a lot of other matches," he said. "If that game holds this price or increases, I think a lot of people are going to say these are the prices."
The most expensive Seattle match is still U.S. vs. Australia on June 19, with a get-in cost of $1,048 on the secondary marketplace or $909 on the FIFA resale marketplace. The least expensive local match is Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Qatar on June 24, with a get-in cost of $228 on the secondary market and $159 on the FIFA resale marketplace.
A site called seatsidekick.com, built by a soccer fan hoping to simplify the ticket search process, shows the number of tickets available to each of the games via FIFA's main ticketing portal (which accounts for tickets made available in the last-minute sales phase) and FIFA's resale marketplace.
The number of tickets available direct from FIFA can fluctuate dramatically by day as FIFA continues to roll out new tickets through the last-minute sales phase. As of Thursday at noon, the number of tickets available for Seattle's matches were as follows:
The numbers don't account for the tickets that are available on other resale markets, including platforms like SeatGeek and StubHub, among others.
FIFA opened the last-minute sales phase at the start of April and said that it was the fourth and final phase for fans to buy tickets to the World Cup. The sales phase releases tickets on a mostly undisclosed rolling basis, with FIFA encouraging fans to check the desired matches through their portal to see if new tickets have been made available. Tickets will continue to be released throughout the tournament, according to FIFA.
Still waiting for a seat
Jeff Smith, 65, was offered the chance to buy tickets through FIFA's Right-To-Buy process by a friend's son.
"Right to Buy" tokens were sold by FIFA and crypto partner Modex for hundreds or thousands of dollars far in advance of the 2026 World Cup. FIFA said token holders would have the ability to purchase one or two tickets in the future for an unspecified price.
The friend's son was able to buy tickets through the normal lottery, and asked Smith if he wanted to take over the right to buy. Smith described the process, which he completed months ago, as "very hard to follow and so weird."
In order to turn the "Right to Buy" into a "Right to Ticket," Smith had to pay upfront, not knowing where the seats would be or who was playing in the game. He and his neighbor, a European and big soccer fan, decided to do it, putting up $600 each for lower bowl seats to the June 24 game, which is the Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Qatar match.
Smith still doesn't have a ticket, or a seat assignment.
"All they say is, 'We'll let you know when you get closer,' but they don't tell you anything," Smith said, adding he feels confident FIFA will follow through on providing the ticket.
"I'm retired and I'm doing fun things," Smith said. "Materially, it doesn't kill me, but as a ticket-buying sports fan, it's annoying because it comes across as very high-handed."
Category seating frustrations
Rehan Irfan, a 33-year-old who lives in Seattle, put in to buy tickets at the start of this calendar year after multiple failed attempts to get tickets through the lotteries. He said when he bought tickets, FIFA asked him to indicate eight games of interest and ultimately offered him the option to buy tickets for four of the games.
He was offered tickets to two games in Seattle, one in Toronto and one in Vancouver. The caveat was that he had to buy for all four of the games, rather than picking and choosing.
FIFA uses category seating, primarily broken down into four groups. Category 1 seats are the most expensive and mostly located in the lower tier. Category 2 seats are located across the upper and lower tiers; Category 3 seats are in the upper tier and a there are a small percentage of Category 4 seats available on the far ends of the stadium.
Irfan purchased Category 2 tickets for each of the games and was surprised when his seat assignments for all four games were located in less-desirable corners of each of the stadium.
For example, his tickets to the Belgium vs. Egypt game on June 15 are in Section 322, which is located on the one of the goal sides in the 300 level. He paid $400 per ticket, including taxes. When he first looked at the map, Irfan was surprised and wondered if the map had been changed.
"That wasn't the case, the category was still the category, but it was kind of confusing how I had all of these tickets and all four of them were somewhere in the corner," Irfan said.
While Irfan's section had always been in Category 2, meaning he may have just been unlucky, The Athletic reported on how FIFA altered stadium maps, including Seattle Stadium's to reassign some sections to different categories after tickets had been sold.
"I think the ticketing process and the way that they've done it was pretty frustrating," he said. "I can understand why it's hard to do something like this … but I am not happy with the ticketing process and how everything went. I'm glad I got a few tickets, but it was not fun.
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