Extras, Time & Pens

I’m a huge fan of the Ricky Gervais show, Extras.

In a scene in the final episode, Gervais walks into the office of his hapless agent, Darren(!) Lamb, to find him engaged in a poorly-timed activity involving a pen with a naked lady on it.

Gervais’s character, Andy Millman, says it’s yet more evidence of the kind of incompetence they’d been discussing. His embarrassed agent, whilst still trying to pull his trousers up under the table, replies ‘we didn’t talk about this.’

Millman: ‘I didn’t think we needed to.’

I was reminded of this as I read the media storm created by the World Cup 2026 ticket prices.

Having worked at the tournament in Qatar, where I (with The Fan Experience Company and Geoff Wilson) worked on match day assessments for FIFA at 10 games, and compiled a report on things that the organisers and hosts can learn from it in future World Cups. There were lots of things in there, but ticket pricing wasn’t included in them.

To be honest, it was one of those things we didn’t think we needed to say.

Things to do in 2026: don’t make tickets five times more expensive.

Yet here we are.

Much has been said, and it hardly needs me to add that the dynamic pricing model being used has garnered a lot of bad press. Who knew?

In Qatar, an early issue was identified as part of the initial assessments.

It seems small compared to the ticket issue, but there were no prices on the items in the Official FIFA stores at the stadiums. Fans had to browse, select and get in line – with queues often 10-20 long – and only discover the price when they got to the counter. The prices made little sense at times, with some very reasonable and others – an Adidas t-shirt at around £50 for example – were much more expensive. But you didn’t know until you paid (there were the odd member of staff on the customer side of the counters, but they were mostly trying to tidy up as the open plan lay-out and lack of changing rooms made the stores look and feel a little chaotic).

I talked to lots of fans waiting in line. This was typical of the conversations I had:

‘How much is that?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘What if it’s really expensive when you get to the front?’

‘I’ll leave it, or maybe just pay it and put it down to experience. It’s a one-off purchase.’

‘You’re happy about that?’

‘Not really, but what can you do? I’ve been in the queue for 10 minutes already.’

This was immediately flagged, and to their credit, FIFA rectified the situation almost as quickly, with price stickers being added to items at the very next game the following day.

But that’s for a bit of merchandise. Imagine that being the case for tickets themselves.

Paying the Price

Prices are not being made clear up front, and the dynamic pricing model means that – even paying face value – a fan following their team to the final would probably spend more than £5,000 on tickets alone, before they’ve factored in any transport and accommodation.

Which all feels a bit wrong.

That FIFA quickly announced there would be $60 tickets made available suggested they’d also been stung by the criticism. But they are as rare as modest Presidents, and – while at least showing FIFA can listen – is all a bit too little and too late.

The game’s governing body will point to the 5m ticket requests in the first ballot, from 200 countries, but that doesn’t justify the high prices. They also said the tournament was like having 104 Superbowls. I suggest they try having – instead of just one – 104 Superbowls next January and see how that goes.

The World Cup is supposed to make football more accessible and inclusive for everyone; wasn’t that the point of expanding to 48 countries? Yet how are the fans supposed to afford to go? In Qatar, some Argentinians I spoke to had sold their cars to travel there and attend one game before heading straight home.

And that’s Argentina. Three-time winners. Many countries are there for the first time, or the first time for a long time. Their fans might not have seen their country in a World Cup before.

Haiti, one of the world’s poorest nations with an average monthly wage of less than $150, is a classic example. The cheapest ticket for their first game at a World Cup since 1974 costs $180. And that’s against Scotland. To go to all their group games, a fan would need over $600 (four months salary) just to get into the stadiums.

Regulars Ghana – where the average monthly salary is $250 – has fans who are having to cancel their dream trip this time.

In England, the FA and Football Supporters Association (FSA) have voiced their concerns, with the FSA calling the prices a ‘laughable insult to supporters’ but the FA have to be careful as not to put their joint-hosting of the 2035 Women’s World Cup in jeopardy.

So FIFA seemingly have us all by the balls.

There’s no way back now anyway. They aren’t going to suspend sales, change the pricing structure or increase the number of cheaper tickets. Like any other World Cup, they hope that eventually any fuss will blow over and we’ll just get on with it.

Time Will Tell

I’ve a feeling that they might regret it this time.

That some stadiums won’t be anywhere near full, or that the atmosphere will be heavily diluted by having most of it filled with rich neutrals rather than genuine fans of the teams on the field.

I also worry, with the three teams qualifying from most of the groups, that the opening stage will have a lot of games without too much on it. The group stage in Qatar was fantastic, with some jaw-dropping games that had a lot riding on them; I went to Argentina versus Mexico – the atmosphere was incredible - and it was effectively a knock-out game in the second week.

But in the summer, there is a distinct lack of fixtures in the group stage that really stand out, with no big heads meeting until the latter stages - which makes the prices more galling – and it will be far harder to get knocked out than reach the knockouts.

Only time will tell, I suppose. But it would serve them right if the greed got in the way of the spectacle. Maybe that would make them really listen for once and not pay lip service to the fans.

Doubt it though.

As an England fan, I’m just hoping that our travelling supporters do end up paying a lot, because that will mean we’ll be there until the end.

 And that, if we are, it doesn’t involve any pens.

 Merry Christmas and very best wishes for 2026.