President Donald Trump acknowledged this week that tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup are too expensive for ordinary fans—a striking admission that puts him at odds with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, his close ally, who just days earlier defended the steep prices as a natural consequence of hosting the world’s biggest sporting event in America’s premium sports economy.
“I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest,” Trump told the New York Post, referring to the $1,000-plus prices for World Cup matches. The comment came just days after Infantino doubled down on the pricing at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, making it one of the sharpest public breaks yet between the two men over the management of the tournament set to kick off across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in June.
Infantino’s market defense
Infantino, who describes himself as Trump’s friend and has been seen in close proximity to Trump many times in the lead-up to the event, visited the Oval Office last November to jointly unveil the “FIFA Pass” visa program easing travel for international fans. He has been unapologetic about the cost of attending the tournament.
“We have to look at the market—we are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates,” Infantino said at the Milken conference.
He went further, claiming attending a U.S. college football game couldn’t be done for under $300—a comparison that sports economists and journalists quickly picked apart as misleading. He also attempted to defuse criticism with a joke, saying he would “personally bring a hot dog and a Coke” to anyone who paid resale prices. Infantino also alluded to how these tickets will end up on the resale market “at an even higher price, more than double our price,” implicitly alluding to what Wharton economist Judd Kessler calls “hidden markets” where price discovery is mysterious.
How expensive are the tickets?
The numbers are stark by any historical measure. When tickets first went on sale in late 2025, the cheapest category was priced at $120 and the final topped out at $7,875. Those prices have since surged dramatically. By April 2026, the maximum price for a final ticket had climbed to $10,990—nearly seven times higher than the $1,550 maximum promised during the North American bid process. Four seats to the final were listed on FIFA’s own official resale marketplace at just under $2.3 million each. By comparison, the most expensive ticket to the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar was approximately $1,600.
Demand has not been the problem. FIFA has received more than 500 million ticket requests for the 2026 tournament.
A divided administration
Trump’s candid admission also breaks with the line his own White House has maintained. In January, Monica Crowley, Trump’s U.S. chief of protocol and the administration’s point person on the World Cup, dismissed fan anger by saying: “Understand this is a supply and demand situation here,” in an appearance on Fox Business.
Tickets are just the beginning of the financial burden fans face. Attendees are also absorbing $80–$100 in transit surcharges per match and elevated fuel costs driven in part by tariff-related inflation. Football Supporters Europe calculated a fan attending every match from the group stage through the final faces a minimum outlay of $6,900—nearly five times the equivalent cost at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
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