Empty seats at the 2026 World Cup reopened the question of ticket prices
Scenes of unfilled stands at the start of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada opened a new debate about how accessible football’s biggest competition is to fans. The matches that drew the most attention were South Korea – Czechia in Guadalajara on 11 June 2026 and Qatar – Switzerland in Santa Clara on 13 June 2026, because television footage and photographs from both stadiums showed visible gaps among spectators. FIFA, however, publishes official attendance figures that are very close to the confirmed capacities of those stadiums, so the question arose of the difference between sold or scanned tickets and the actual occupancy of seats during the match. According to Reuters, FIFA reported 44,985 spectators for the South Korea and Czechia match, although parts of the stands in Guadalajara looked empty. According to the Associated Press, 67,966 spectators were officially listed for the Qatar and Switzerland match in Santa Clara, while at the same time a large number of red seats was visible in television shots and photographs from the stands.
The official figures and the impression from the stands did not match
The South Korea and Czechia match was played at the stadium that FIFA calls Guadalajara Stadium in tournament documents, and the officially confirmed capacity for the World Cup is 45,664 seats. If that capacity is compared with the published attendance of 44,985 spectators, it is a figure that suggests an almost full stadium. But Reuters reported that larger gaps could be seen around the stadium and in the stands, which made the match the first more serious example of a debate about how FIFA presents attendance at a tournament that has more matches than any previous World Cup. In a statement to Reuters, FIFA said that the official figures reflect the number of scanned tickets and spectators present within the stadium area, not a visual assessment of seat occupancy at a particular moment of the match. In other words, it is possible that some spectators were not in their seats when the television footage was being recorded, but from the available information it cannot be confirmed how many empty places were the result of fan movement, unused tickets or insufficient sales of certain categories.
In Guadalajara, the debate was given additional weight by the fact that this is a football city with a long tradition, a host that had already been part of major international competitions and a place where a strong local crowd was expected. According to FIFA’s capacity data, Guadalajara Stadium is one of the smaller stadiums at the tournament, so under usual expectations it would be considered easier to fill such a match than games at large American stadiums with more than 65,000 seats. Reuters stated that some fans at the stadium blamed high ticket prices and FIFA’s sales model for the empty seats. Such claims should be viewed cautiously because individual fan statements do not provide a complete picture of sales, but they show the direction in which the debate immediately developed. In the same match, South Korea, according to FIFA’s match report, beat Czechia 2:1 after a comeback, but the sporting result quickly faded into the background because of the question of why the impression from the stands was different from the official data.
Santa Clara also showed another problem: price, kick-off time and weather conditions
Two days later, a similar impression was repeated in Santa Clara, where Qatar played 1:1 against Switzerland at the stadium known as Levi's Stadium, which in FIFA’s official tournament nomenclature is listed as San Francisco Bay Area Stadium. FIFA confirmed that stadium’s World Cup capacity at 68,827 seats, and the official attendance for the Qatar and Switzerland match was 67,966 spectators. The Associated Press reported that despite that nearly maximum stadium figure, thousands of empty red seats could be seen, especially on the side exposed to the sun. According to the same agency, the temperature at kick-off was around 28 degrees Celsius, which was described for local conditions as an unusually warm June afternoon. Part of the visual impression was further intensified by the fact that Swiss fans wore red, so in photographs they could blend in with the colour of the seats.
In the case of Santa Clara, the empty seats cannot be interpreted only through ticket prices, because weather conditions and the layout of the stadium clearly played a role in the movement of spectators. The Associated Press stated that some of the empty places were located on the eastern side of the stadium, which during warm days can be particularly uncomfortable because of exposure to the sun. Such details are important because the 2026 World Cup for the first time includes 16 host cities in three large countries, with different climate conditions, traffic habits and sporting cultures. However, even when heat, fan movement around the stadium and the specific nature of visual perception are taken into account, the question remains why the official figures are so high in relation to the scenes that reached the television audience. For the organisers, this is a communication problem because the debate about attendance in the first week of the tournament has connected with already existing criticism of prices and sales transparency.
The biggest format in history also brings a greater risk of uneven interest
The 2026 World Cup is the first edition with 48 national teams and a total of 104 matches, which is a significantly larger format than tournaments with 32 national teams. According to FIFA, the competition runs from 11 June to 19 July 2026 and is played in Canada, Mexico and the United States, and the organiser expects total attendance to surpass the record of 3.5 million spectators set at the 1994 World Cup in the USA. Ahead of the tournament, FIFA emphasised that the finally confirmed stadium capacities show the scale of the competition, because more national teams, more matches and more large venues will make a record total number of spectators possible. That logic, however, does not mean that every individual match will automatically have the same public interest. Group-stage matches between national teams with fewer travelling fans or with a smaller local support base may be particularly sensitive to price, kick-off time, stadium distance and additional travel costs.
The expanded format is precisely one of the key points of the current debate. A larger number of national teams enables wider global participation and opens space for teams that previously had more difficulty reaching the finals, but at the same time it increases the number of matches that organisers must sell to a large audience. In cities where there is no strong connection with certain national teams, demand relies more on general interest in the World Cup, tourists and neutral spectators. If tickets for those matches are expensive, and the timing is unfavourable or weather conditions are difficult, the threshold for deciding to buy becomes higher. That is why the scenes from Guadalajara and Santa Clara are not only a matter of several television shots, but a test of the sustainability of a model in which the tournament is simultaneously expanding and being strongly commercialised.
Dynamic pricing has changed fans’ expectations
Ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup have been the subject of criticism since the beginning of the sales phases. ESPN reported in September 2025 that FIFA confirmed the use of dynamic pricing for this edition, with starting prices ranging from 60 US dollars for group-stage matches to 6,730 dollars for the most expensive tickets for the final. The same source stated that those ranges were significantly higher than the prices published for the tournament in Qatar in 2022, where tickets in US-dollar equivalent ranged from 69 to 1,607 dollars, as well as higher than prices at the 1994 World Cup in the USA. FIFA later also introduced a special Supporter Entry Tier category, with a fixed price of 60 dollars per ticket for each of the 104 matches, including the final, but according to FIFA’s explanation these are tickets intended for national-team supporters through the allocation of national associations. This means that the existence of a lower entry price does not necessarily solve the problem of accessibility for the wider public if the number of such tickets is limited or tied to special criteria.
In April 2026, FIFA announced that in the final sales phase tickets for all 104 matches would be available on the official website, with additional releases of ticket allocations until the end of the tournament, depending on availability. In the same announcement, the organiser stated that more than five million tickets had been sold by then and repeated that the official website FIFA.com/tickets was the preferred source for purchase, alongside the authorised market for ticket resale and exchange. These data confirm that total sales can be very large, but they do not remove the question of how demand is distributed by matches and seating categories. High demand for the final, host-nation matches or matches involving the most popular national teams does not automatically mean equal demand for every group-stage fixture. Scenes of empty sectors therefore become an argument for critics who claim that the price at some matches has reached a level at which part of the potential audience gives up.
FIFA defends the model, fan organisations demand transparency
FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended the pricing policy ahead of the start of the tournament, saying that demand for tickets was unprecedented and that revenue is important for financing the development of football. According to an agency report carried by Saudi Gazette, Infantino said in Mexico City on 10 June 2026 that more than six million tickets had been sold and that FIFA had additionally released 130,000 tickets with an entry price of 60 dollars. He also argued that an official price that was too low could encourage more expensive resale on the secondary market, with the profit going to resellers rather than to football. That is FIFA’s key argument: the organiser believes it must manage the value of a product that has enormous global demand and that revenue from the World Cup is returned to football programmes. However, critics respond that such an approach does not resolve the question of who in practice can afford to go to a match.
Football Supporters Europe and Euroconsumers filed a complaint with the European Commission over ticket sales practices for the 2026 World Cup, citing problems with dynamic pricing, transparency and the position of fans in a situation in which the organiser controls limited supply. In a joint statement, the organisations assessed that dynamic pricing in sporting and cultural events can turn fan loyalty into a bidding contest that raises costs without additional value. FIFA does not accept those claims as a complete picture, highlighting enormous demand, multi-phase sales, additional ticket allocations and safer official channels for purchase and resale. Still, the current debate shows that the number of tickets sold is not the only measure of success. For public perception, the visibility of empty seats, the sense of tournament accessibility and fans’ trust that prices and ticket categories are clearly explained are also important.
The debate will continue through the next matches
For FIFA, it is particularly sensitive that the controversy appeared at the very start of the tournament, before the most attractive group-stage matches had been played and before the later stages in which demand usually increases. If similar scenes repeat at other matches, the debate about prices could become one of the main accompanying themes of the 2026 World Cup, alongside sporting results and organisational challenges in the three host countries. If, however, it turns out that the empty places in Guadalajara and Santa Clara were partly the result of specific circumstances, such as spectators moving around the stadium, heat or the layout of sections, the problem could diminish as the tournament progresses. The information currently available does not allow a final conclusion on how many tickets remained unsold or unused at the mentioned matches. What is confirmed is that the difference between the official figures and the visual impression is large enough to have opened a broader debate about the commercial model of the tournament.
The South Korea – Czechia and Qatar – Switzerland matches have therefore become more than early group-stage encounters. They have shown how, in the biggest edition of the World Cup so far, success will be measured not only by record total numbers, but also by how convincingly full the stadiums look at every individual match. FIFA has strong arguments about total demand, the number of tickets sold and global interest in the competition, but footage of empty seats creates an impression that is difficult to neutralise with statistics. For fans, the key question is whether the World Cup remains an event accessible to a broad public or is increasingly turning into a product aimed at buyers willing to pay the highest prices. The answer to that question will come not only from official announcements, but from the stands at the next matches, especially at fixtures that do not have the status of major derbies, but which in a tournament of this scale should show how broad the football audience truly is.
Sources:
- Reuters / WHBL – report on empty seats at the South Korea – Czechia match, official attendance and FIFA’s explanation of the figures (link)
- Associated Press – report from Santa Clara on the Qatar – Switzerland match, official attendance, empty seats and weather conditions (link)
- FIFA / Inside FIFA – confirmed stadium capacities for the 2026 World Cup and data on record total attendance (link)
- FIFA / Inside FIFA – data on ticket demand, the format with 48 national teams and 104 matches, and the Supporter Entry Tier category (link)
- FIFA / Inside FIFA – announcement on the final sales phase, additional ticket allocations and the official resale and exchange market (link)
- ESPN – report on the initial price ranges and the introduction of dynamic pricing for the 2026 World Cup (link)
- Football Supporters Europe and Euroconsumers – joint statement on the complaint to the European Commission over ticket sales practices for the 2026 World Cup (link)
- Saudi Gazette / agencies – report of Gianni Infantino’s statements on ticket prices, demand and additionally released tickets (link)
- FIFA – match report from South Korea – Czechia and the sporting result of the match in Guadalajara (link)