"Who is this World Cup for?" That's Peter Moore, the former Liverpool CEO, asking the question that nobody at FIFA wants to answer. The 2026 tournament kicks off in six weeks and the governing body is staring down a problem of its own making: a World Cup so expensive that the people who actually care about football can't afford to attend.
The cheapest complete package for an England fan following the Three Lions all the way to the final — assuming they get there — comes to $7,020. Category 1 throughout? $16,590. Add travel, hotels, and the reality of living in American cities for a month and you're north of $60,000. That's not a football trip. That's a second mortgage.
The backlash FIFA didn't see coming
What makes this particularly awkward for Gianni Infantino is where the loudest criticism is coming from. FIFA has long treated British media as its chief antagonists. But the most scorching headlines in recent weeks have run in the Boston Globe and The New Yorker, not the Daily Mail. Senior Democrats have been publicly telling FIFA to pick up the bill for transportation costs that have spiralled out of control — a train from Penn Station to MetLife Stadium will charge fans over $100, ten times the standard fare.
Infantino's defence is that FIFA is a non-profit, redistributing billions across 211 member associations. That's technically true. It's also somewhat beside the point when his organisation is running an official secondary-market ticketing site that Moore describes as active participation in price gouging — not just turning a blind eye to it.
FIFA still has up to a million tickets left to sell to hit the six million capacity. One senior European football figure half-joked the crowds will "look like Davos." That's funny until you remember what it means: the atmospheres that made Qatar memorable — Argentinians, Moroccans, Brazilians filling stands with colour and noise — are not coming in the same numbers to New Jersey and Dallas.
England's official allocation hasn't fully sold out either. Despite FA membership surging to around 30,000 on the back of recent tournament runs, between 3,000 and 4,000 England fans are expected per match. That's a modest away end by any standard. The Football Supporters Association's Thomas Concannon put it diplomatically: the costs "have gone above and beyond what anyone could have realistically imagined."
Behind the scenes, the cracks are wider
At this week's FIFA Congress in Vancouver, Infantino declared the organisation was in its "most solid financial position ever" — and then announced a 15% prize money increase for participating nations. Fine. But sources involved in tournament preparations tell a different story behind the press conference warmth: service-level agreements with venue contractors have been cut by up to a third over the past year. Stadium staffing budgets trimmed. Media infrastructure scaled back. Some venues will carry 50% less World Cup branding than Qatar.
The logistics were always going to be the challenge here. Russia and Qatar were centralised operations. This tournament spans a continent with differing tax regimes, state-federal political tensions, and the added complication of Donald Trump back in the White House. A Host City Agreement signed in 2018 promised free transportation for fans to matches. Boston to Foxborough will cost $80 by train, $95 by bus.
Moore, who was vice-president at Reebok during USA 94 and watched that tournament succeed on affordable, accessible ticketing, is blunt about the contrast. "Infantino's KPI is the $11bn income rather than people just having a great time." He's 72 now and says he's genuinely saddened. That's not the language of a critic looking for a take. That's someone who helped build American football culture watching it get strip-mined.
The tournament will still generate $11bn. FIFA's members will get their cut. But the crowd scenes that sell a World Cup to the next generation of fans — the ones that justify the whole exercise — are going to be much harder to find this time around.
