Breaking Bank
Leaving out my working assignment in Qatar in 2022, I’ve attended two major football tournaments purely as a fan; Euro 2004 in Portugal and the World Cup two years later in Germany.
They were very different they both had so many things going for them.
Portugal was compact, with little travel required and almost everything a short metro ride away if you were based in the capital as I was. You could have breakfast in the square, be on the beach in the afternoon, a game in the evening and still make it back for drinks on Lisbon’s newly-built waterfront promenade before midnight.
Germany, in contrast, was sprawling as we travelled by road across eight cities from Dortmund to Munich, taking in games and enjoying the German countryside and towns, as well as their many drinking establishments. The games were more random (Switzerland v Togo, Australia v Croatia as well as England versus Sweden and Ecuador – although not both together) than in the Euros where fixtures and opponents had a more familiar feel to them.
But, from a travelling fan perspective, they are difficult to separate as experiences.
The 2026 World Cup and Euro 28 won’t be. One’s as expensive as hell, and one won’t be.
This was laid out this week as ticket prices for both tournaments were put side by side when UEFA decided to release figures as FIFA were in the middle of a pricing shitstorm that many would say was of their own making.
‘Remember where we parked’
My friend, Jim McCarthy explained it beautifully on LinkedIn earlier this week. UEFA, cannily, had swooped in with a pricing strategy story of their own as they announced that tickets for Euro 28 (in the UK and Ireland) – a tournament where qualifying hasn’t even started yet – would be much, much lower than they are in this summer’s World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Or, as it was framed in the media, five tickets for the Euros equates to the cost of a car parking space at some of the World Cup venues.
Jim – a global authority on ticketing – saw it for what it was. The timing was obviously not coincidental. As FIFA were embroiled in a bad news story, it was an opportune moment for their European rival to take the fan-centric high road.
But the astronomical ticket and car parking prices are far from the only accusations that FIFA are having to fend off. Other issues continue to pile up.
UEFA have promised that 10,000 tickets per game will go to the fans of the competing countries. This is just 4,000 for the World Cup, despite nearly all of the stadiums being much bigger.
Then there is the ticket for the final that’s priced at almost $11,000 – and believed to be the most expensive general admission ticket ever for a football / soccer match. The bid book for the competition stated that final tickets would cost a maximum of $1,550 (£1,174).
This comes at a time when the worldwide cost of living is inflating quickly because of conflicts not completely unrelated to the World Cup hosts, and when on a domestic level, fans such as Liverpool’s are accusing their club of pricing people out of it as they announced multi-year increases up to 2028/29 that ‘gave fans economic certainty’; for some, certainty that they wouldn’t be able to afford it.
“Once you get rid of integrity, the rest is a piece of cake”
And then there is the resale.
What is this madness? I had neither the time, nor inclination, to go too deeply into it but it seemed that a situation has been created where people are perfectly placed to buy tickets, then fleece fans for the privilege of buying them of them.
All the resale prices saw large increases on the initial ticket prices, some up to three or four times more.
Now, this isn’t unusual. I had official ticket in 2004, but found myself having to acquire them two years later. They weren’t difficult to find – especially outside stadiums – but pricing was a mixed bag. For the Switzerland game in Dortmund, we purchased tickets for €20 less than twenty feet from the turnstiles. But for England’s knockout game in Stuttgart, we had to buy tickets for Germany’s match (and that knocked us each back €400) and then exchange them for England ones.
Whilst the mark-up was high, the tickets were fantastic and we sat a row behind the WAGs in the stand with a perfect view of Theo Walcott warming up (one of the few things of note that happened during the 90 minutes). But it also transpired that these tickets had originally been given to staff of one of the main sponsors (McDonalds) for free, and the recipients had cashed in big time. We’d expected that, and budgeted accordingly, but it leaves a bitter taste in that genuine match-going fans have to pay through the nose.
But the resale policy here seems like it has turned this into an art form.
And like FIFA have given ‘fans’ a licence to print money, mainly off the proceeds of other fans, and – as FIFA take a 15% fee from both the buyer and seller – also print it for themselves.
The fans – already paying almost two hundred dollars for parking, now see the – already very high - ticket prices rocket in price. And that’s before the local authorities do the same with their public transport fares – as they’ve done in Boston. In Germany, in 2006, all public transport was free for fans.
“Let’s Play Bamboozle!”
Now they’ve also found out that the stadium seating plans were – according to Nick who spoke to The Athletic – misleading and many fans who bought tickets for certain sections have discovered their seat is in a different (and less good) spot. Nick said it was ‘hard to not feel scammed or bamboozled’ and later described being ‘manipulated’ and ‘taken advantage of’.
Not exactly fan centric, right?
If you’re thinking ‘well at least it can’t get worse’, then I’m afraid it can. Days ago, a story emerged that FIFA have – less than 100 days out – announced a new category that is higher than the Category 1 that was initially promoted and that fans purchasing them thought gave them the prime spots.
They don’t. The new Front Category 1 does. And there is a mark-up of up to $1,500 on those ticket prices compared to the previous Category 1. Imagine, as a fan, you’ve paid an unbelievable amount already to get a top ticket that is now, not top, but may be situated right next to a Category 2 ticket in a less than prime location while some rich dude gets what you thought you’d paid for.
Which does kind of beg the question. Why?
Clearly money is at the heart of this, and FIFA are trying to make hay while the sun shines and take advantage of capitalism in the North American market. But they made more than $7.5bn from the 2022 World Cup cycle so how much more do they need?
But we should also remember that it’s not so long ago that greed at the organisation saw no bounds with Sepp Blatter and the bribery scandals that plagued the end of his tenure, when Jack Warner was receiving millions for installing glorified chicken coops as national centres of ‘excellence’ in some CONCACAF countries, and Chuck Blazer was renting an apartment in Trump Tower for his cat.
FIFA say they’ve changed since then.
They also say that 150 countries (there are 211 member nations in FIFA) wouldn’t have tournament football if it weren’t for them.
“It is a fact that without FIFA’s support, there would be no tournament football in 150 member countries. They simply wouldn’t have the resources to develop the necessary infrastructure, as well as to promote the training and support of teams and players”
FIFA Spokesperson
Which is quite a claim given that international football predates FIFA by more than three decades and that many countries were kicking a pig’s skin around in an organised manner long before they were permitted to by someone in a shiny building in Zurich.
The current president (when elected in 2016) set up the Financial Assistance Programme that had put almost $3bn into member associations up to 2022, and that can be used to fund operations, tailored projects, travel and equipment costs. It sounds a lot, but actually works out at about $2m per association per year.
“Fear cuts deeper than swords”
Some might suggest that all this money keeps the federations onside and maintains a status quo that existed long before Blatter took charge and will continue until someone puts a stop to it.
Not that it’s likely anyone will. Even in the face of such apparent greed, and despite some would-be-kings approaching it with seemingly unlimited resources, any challenge to a sport’s governing body is unlikely to succeed.
FIFA thinks football needs it more then it needs football. It doesn’t. Without football, FIFA becomes FIA – an international federation of…er, associations.
Football could probably – as it did for decades – exist just as well without them.
Given the chance, it might even do it to a higher standard. After all, the game in its current guise has obscene amounts of money sloshing around, yet most of the teams in it are in debt, some to unfathomable levels. Imagine what could be done with the $11bn the 2026 World Cup will generate if it were to end up in better hands.
I was lucky enough to go to both Euro 2004 and Germany 2006. Many fans – even if their country qualifies - won’t be able to attend the next two major football tournaments; for this summer is quickly becoming out of reach for all but those with the deepest of pockets or who are prepared to rack up a lot of debt. If they can even get a visa, of course.
But there is light at the end of this tunnel.
For some football fans, just two years, later they’ll be able to attend a tournament that’s much closer to what they used to be like; accessible, welcoming, compact. Affordable.
Maybe even fun.
I look forward to seeing you there.
A prize of up to one tenth of a World Cup parking space will be given to the first person to name the four US TV shows quoted in the section headings above. Exclusions apply.
