Andy Milne has been to nine World Cups following England. He's had all his belongings stolen on the road. He's currently selling his second home to fund the trip to the United States. And even he thinks the 2026 pricing has gone too far.
"The £8,333 ticket is staggering," said the retired teacher from Northwich, whose book That World Cup Guy lands next month. "That's the cost of a family car. To put it in context, that's a 76,117% increase on my 1982 final ticket of £4.15 — a rise 761 times faster than general UK prices over the same period."
He's not wrong. The average UK annual salary in 1982 was £5,000–£7,000. A World Cup final ticket cost less than a week's wages. Now, FIFA's open sale for the 2026 final lists seats at up to $10,990 (£8,333) — thought to be the highest general admission price ever charged for a football match. Qatar's top final ticket was $1,604. The US bid originally promised a $1,550 maximum. Neither figure survived contact with FIFA's pricing team.
It's not just the tickets
Milne has tickets for every England game through to the final, and he's planned a seven-week road trip — including a pilgrimage to Graceland. But the full cost of following England in 2026 extends well beyond face value.
- Hotels near Arlington Stadium (England's opener against Croatia on June 17) are charging £600–£800 per night, versus a normal rate of £150–£200
- Return flights from the UK are running around £1,100
- England's allocation for their first match — a 94,000-capacity stadium — is just 4,022 tickets, roughly 4% of seats, down from the 8–10% fans typically received at previous tournaments
Then there's the resale market. FIFA has formalised ticket touting through an official platform and takes 15% from both buyer and seller — effectively a 30% tax on every resale transaction. Try selling outside that system and your tickets get cancelled. "FIFA has effectively legalised ticket touting," Milne said. "The irony is hard to ignore: fans are being exploited in the name of serving fans."
FIFA's defence doesn't quite land
FIFA points to a Supporter Entry Tier at $60 per ticket for all 104 matches, including the final, and notes that 50% of each national association's allocation falls within its two most affordable pricing bands. They also argue their resale fees align with standard North American sports and entertainment practice, and that as a not-for-profit, World Cup revenue is reinvested into global football development.
Some of that is fair context. But it doesn't explain why the ceiling price tripled between FIFA's own bid commitments and the actual sale, or why England fans are getting half the ticket access they once did at inflated costs. The $60 entry tier exists — but so does the $10,990 seat, and the latter is what sets the tone for who this tournament is actually for.
Milne acknowledges the irony of his own position. "It's slightly ironic that I'm prepared to sell a small part of my pension to go myself," he said. "But this is not about profit, it's about passion."
Passion is still there. The access increasingly isn't. For anyone pricing a trip to the 2026 World Cup right now, the gap between the two has never been wider.
