Fifa President Gianni Infantino, US President Donald Trump, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney at the draw for the 2026 World Cup – Copyright AFP Jim WATSON<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he would not pay the $1,000-plus ticket price for the United States\u2019 first World Cup match, piling pressure on FIFA over its sky-high costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not know that number,\u201d the billionaire Trump told the New York Post, adding \u201cI would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn\u2019t pay it either, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
US lawmakers and international fan groups have slammed FIFA over its pricing structure for the tournament that kicks off in June, with Football Supporters Europe branding it a \u201cmonumental betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump appeared concerned that lower-income Americans \u2014 a key voting bloc for him \u2014 would be priced out of attending the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people from Queens and Brooklyn and all of the people that love Donald Trump can\u2019t go, I would be disappointed, but, you know, at the same time, it\u2019s an amazing success.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to be able to have the people that voted for me to be able to go,\u201d added Trump, who takes credit for securing the World Cup for the United States during his first term as president.<\/p>\n
Trump is close to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who on Tuesday insisted the governing body was obliged to take advantage of US laws that allow tickets to be resold for thousands of dollars above face value.<\/p>\n
He said that FIFA received over 500 million ticket requests for 2026, compared with fewer than 50 million combined for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.<\/p>\n
The FIFA leader added that 25 percent of tickets for the group phase were priced at under $300.<\/p>\n
Fan groups have contrasted the tickets for this summer with the Qatar World Cup in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The most expensive ticket for the final in 2022 was around $1,600 at face value, while in 2026 it is about $11,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa President Gianni Infantino, US President Donald Trump, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[336,16034,16035,111,113,4337,28,16036],"class_list":["post-36887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-336","tag-fbl","tag-hide","tag-mark-carney","tag-politics","tag-tickets","tag-trump","tag-wc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36887","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=36887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}