President Donald Trump blasted the exorbitant ticket prices for the hotly anticipated FIFA World Cup this summer, claiming that even he wouldn’t shell out for them.
In a Wednesday phone interview with The New York Post, the billionaire president learned that American soccer fans are being quoted four-figure fares for even the cheapest seats at an upcoming match.
“I did not know that number,” Trump told the outlet. “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.”
On StubHub, the most affordable tickets for the U.S.-Paraguay match on June 12 at SoFi Stadium outside of Los Angeles start at $1,056 (£776). That’s higher than the $876 (£643) low for the England vs. Panama game on June 27 at MetLife Stadium on the outskirts of New York City, or the $750 (£551) being asked for the France vs. Senegal face-off there on June 16.
“I would have to take a look at it,” the Republican president said before lamenting that his own voters might be priced out of the tournament, which runs from June 11 to July 19 in over a dozen cities throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
“If people from Queens and Brooklyn and all of the people that love Donald Trump can’t go, I would be disappointed, but, you know, at the same time, it’s an amazing success,” he said. “I would like to be able to have the people that voted for me to be able to go.”
Still, the president voiced satisfaction with the five million tickets already sold, declaring, “They’ve never had anything like it.”
In recent weeks, fans across the world have expressed frustration over their inability to secure tickets for the quadrennial soccer extravaganza, due to record-high ticket costs.
“Global football still tries to adhere to this idea of a more populist aspiration about the accessibility of the game. That’s basically become a fiction, and this is the corporatization of World Cups on steroids,” Andrés Martinez, a soccer author, told The Hill.
Some have drawn comparisons to the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022, where the most expensive final ticket was roughly $1,600 at face value. This year, by contrast, the top-priced ticket for the final is about $11,000 at its original cost.
“It doesn’t feel the same as the previous two World Cups,” Francisco Javier Ferreira, a 70-year-old Mexican soccer aficionado, told CNN. “That’s how it feels to me because even ticket prices are out of reach for everyone.”
Criticism has escalated into legal action, with the fan group Football Supporters Europe filing a lawsuit with the European Commission in March, which accuses FIFA of “excessive ticket prices.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended the lofty sums being demanded for this summer’s tournament, arguing they reflect the cost of doing business in the states.
“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 a conference in Beverly Hills this week. “In the U.S., it is permitted to resell tickets as well. So if you were to sell tickets at the price which is too low, these tickets will be resold at a much higher price.”
He also pointed out that tickets for sporting events in the U.S. are generally expensive.
“You cannot go to watch in the U.S. a college game, not even speaking about a top professional game of a certain level, for less than $300,” Infantino said. “And this is the World Cup.”
Infantino added that many seats have been reserved at more affordable levels, noting that 25 percent of group‑stage tickets are priced below $300.
