{"id":36547,"date":"2026-05-08T01:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/36547\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T01:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T01:52:10","slug":"almost-4000-tickets-to-canadas-world-cup-opening-match-become-available-to-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/36547\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost 4,000 tickets to Canada\u2019s World Cup opening match become available to fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

One of four giant LCD screens located around the pitch at BMO Field is shown as part of the stadium\u2019s upgrades ahead of hosting six FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in Toronto.Eduardo Lima\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Almost 4,000 tickets to Team Canada\u2019s first World Cup match in Toronto are available on the tournament\u2019s official ticket site, with more than 2,500 also on sale to the team\u2019s second match, in Vancouver, after FIFA released thousands of more seats this week as part of its unpredictable last-minute sales phase.<\/p>\n

A total of 3,885 tickets were up for sale Thursday evening to Canada\u2019s match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, scheduled for June 12 at Toronto\u2019s BMO Field. That represented more than eight per cent of capacity for the 45,736-seat stadium, with prices ranging from $1,370 for Category 3 tickets to $4,705 for some of the best seats in the house. <\/p>\n

Another 2,529 were available to Canada\u2019s June 18 match against Qatar at BC Place in Vancouver, with prices ranging from $770 for Category 2 to $2,625 for the top tier Front Category 1.<\/p>\n

Tickets already seemed to be moving slowly at those prices, which have not changed in weeks, even before the addition of thousands of more seats. On Apr. 21, The Globe and Mail noted that, over the previous week, the available number of tickets to Team Canada\u2019s June 12 match had only fallen from 1,433 to 1,305<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new jump in availability, which was not announced by FIFA, is in line with the organization\u2019s practice during its last-minute sales phase, which began in early April, of selectively publicizing its ticket releases. The move has kept fans on their toes and hopeful for drops in price, as word spreads of the new releases through social media and on soccer chat sites. <\/p>\n

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The practice has also spurred complaints from fans who had bought tickets in previous sale phases and discovered that tickets put up for sale later were better than what they had purchased in the same price category.<\/p>\n

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said last month that the organization is holding back some tickets \u201cuntil the start of the tournament to give opportunities to latecomers.\u201d Fans have accused FIFA of creating artificial scarcity, which the organization has not directly addressed. <\/p>\n

The tickets on the primary sales site do not include another 800 or so seats to the June 12 match that are up for sale on FIFA\u2019s official secondary ticket Marketplace site.<\/p>\n

Ticketholders who may have been hoping to sell their seats there for a profit have been hit by successive blows over the past few weeks: The Ontario government\u2019s recently passed legislation<\/a> that prevented tickets from being sold at more than face-value (plus service fees), along with FIFA\u2019s ongoing release of new seats.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney and FIFA\u2019s President Gianni Infantino hold a novelty ticket to a World Cup match on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.Blair Gable\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Ticketholders to matches in Vancouver don\u2019t face government price caps \u2013 more than 2,000 seats for the June 18 game are listed on FIFA\u2019s secondary market, starting at about $600 and rocketing up beyond $100,000 \u2013 but they do have to contend with the effect of more tickets being listed for sale at face value.<\/p>\n

Second market inflation aside, fans have complained noisily about FIFA\u2019s high prices. On Thursday, the New York Post reported<\/a> U.S. president Donald Trump had told a reporter for the paper that he wouldn\u2019t be willing to pay US$1,000 for a ticket to Team USA\u2019s opening match next month. (In fact, the least expensive seat currently available is a category 3 ticket for US $1,565.)<\/p>\n

There are some (relative) bargains still to be had, including category 1 tickets to the July 2 Round-of-32 match in Vancouver retailing at $900 each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: One of four giant LCD screens located around the pitch at BMO Field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164,224,238,214,212,239,17,211,230,231,227,213,210,235,171,234,143,222,249,215,216,229,225,226,219,240,220,244,245,247,242,246,94,243,217,142,233,113,232,241,223,236,237,228,221,218,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-36547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-northwest-territories","38":"tag-nova-scotia","39":"tag-nunavut","40":"tag-ontario","41":"tag-pei","42":"tag-photos","43":"tag-political-news","44":"tag-political-opinion","45":"tag-politics","46":"tag-politics-news","47":"tag-quebec","48":"tag-sports-news","49":"tag-technology","50":"tag-travel","51":"tag-trudeau","52":"tag-us-news","53":"tag-world-news","54":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}