Fury across the world as supporters from all participating countries in the FIFA World Cup Finals discover the cheapest tickets will set you back a staggering £3,120
18:24, 11 Dec 2025Updated 21:41, 11 Dec 2025
Lionel Messi wins last World Cup – next year’s final tickets to be hugely expensive(Image: Getty Images)
Football fans across the globe have reacted with fury after the official ticket prices for next year’s World Cup were announced.
The cheapest ticket for any England or Scotland supporter should their side reach the final will be a staggering £3,120. The very cheapest ticket any England fan can get for a group match is £168 – three times higher than Qatar 2022. A lot of tickets for England v Panama will be on sale at £373 or £523.
Supporters of smaller countries like Curacao, Cape Verde and Jordan making their World Cup debuts joined the outrage. FIFA was accused of the “mother of all rip-offs” and finally taking “football from the working class man and woman”.
The powerful fans’ group Football Supporters Europe has said it was “astonished” by Fifa’s “extortionate” pricing policy. They demanded tickets sales should be stopped immediately until a fairer pricing system is worked out.
The extortionate prices began leaking out tonight as FIFA started to inform national associations of their allocations England’s ‘super fans’ Neal Weekes and Fil Sollof were furious. Weekes, 60, an auctioneer from Greenwich, south East London, said: “We are used to being ripped-off but this is ridiculous. This is the mother of all rip-offs.”
READ MORE: England ticket prices for World Cup in full as FIFA accused of ‘monumental betrayal’READ MORE: England World Cup ticket prices revealed as seat for the final to cost MORE than £3,000
Donald Trump with FIFA President Gianni Infantino. (Image: AP)
Sollof, 60, a property services business owner, from Loughton, Essex, said: “FIFA has finally taken football from the working class man and woman. It’s disgusting. This has got to stop. Gianni Infantino is driving this. To him it’s all about the money – to us fans it’s about the glory of the game.
“We understand ticket prices are not going to be cheap anymore, but Infantino has got to remember what the average fan earns.”
In an exclusive interview, Ronan Evain, Director of FSE, told the Mirror: “This is such a shock. We are all stunned by this. A lot of fans won’t be able to afford it. For European fans, this is several months of salary – let alone the rest of the world.
“FIFA doesn’t need the money. They have enormous reserves. This is such a monumental like diversion from the history of football. FIFA has the power to stop and reconsider. We have the feeling that this is a completely rushed decision It’s going to have a very negative impact on the tournament.“
The Football Association is set to notify the England Supporters Travel Club over the weekend that eligible members – those who have accrued enough loyalty points – will expect to pay £198 for a “value tier” seat at their opening game of the tournament against Croatia, in Dallas, Texas.
Fury of England super fans Fil Sollof and Neal Weekes
The new prices mean the cheapest ticket for the final has increased almost seven fold compared with the 2022 World Cup. The lowest-priced tickets on open sale in Qatar were £450.
Tickets for the ‘supporters standard tier’ are £4,162 – compared with £747 in 2022. Supporters premium tier’ is £6,615, with the same band £1,197 at the Lusail Stadium three years ago.
On Monday, members of national supporters’ clubs will get the chance to enter a random draw for individual games, or to follow their team through to the final. In a departure from recent tournaments, group stage games are being priced based on the quality of the teams, rather than at a flat rate. In Qatar, group stage fixtures had set prices of £68.50, £164.50 and £219.
Yet for England’s opening match against Croatia on June 17, tickets cost £198, £373 or £523. There are no category four tickets available to fans, though this was also the case in 2022 when they were reserved exclusively for residents of Qatar.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Mr Evain last night called on FIFA to stop the ticket sale process, believing it needs to rethink the pricing policy. FSE said tickets not being available in the cheapest category is “a monumental betrayal of the tradition of the World Cup, ignoring the contribution of supporters to the spectacle it is”.
It said FIFA should “immediately halt PMA [Participating Member Association allocation] ticket sales, engage in a consultation with all impacted parties, and review ticket prices and category distribution until a solution that respects the tradition, universality, and cultural significance of the World Cup is found”.
The spokesman continued: “In the price tables gradually and confidentially released by Fifa, tickets allocated to National Associations, which typically distribute them via official supporters’ groups or loyalty programmes to their most devoted fans, are reaching astronomical levels.
Jude Bellingham with Harry Kane. (Image: PA)
“Adding insult to injury, the lowest price category will not be available to the most dedicated supporters through their National Associations, as Fifa chose to reserve the scarce number of category four tickets to the general sales, subject to dynamic ticket pricing.
“The bid document released in 2018 promised tickets priced as low as $21. Where are these tickets now? The full way to the final, according to the same bid book, was supposed to cost $2,242 in the cheapest category. This promise is long gone.”
Lisa Webb, Which? Consumer Law expert, said: “These ticket prices are truly shocking and will undoubtedly prevent many fans from making the trip to watch their team in the World Cup.
“FIFA should listen to football supporters around the world and ditch these rip-off prices in favour of a fairer plan for both the initial sale and resale of World Cup tickets.”
A FIFA statement on ticket prices previously said: “The pricing model adopted for FIFA World Cup 26 reflects the existing market practice for major entertainment and sporting events within our hosts on a daily basis, soccer included.”