Tickets for the 2026 World Cup raise the question of Gianni Infantino's power within FIFA
Deutschlandfunk's new series on Gianni Infantino has moved the debate about ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup from the consumer sphere into the very power structure of world football. According to claims made in the series Behind The Games – Gianni Infantino, the question is not only how much fans pay to enter the stadium, but also whom the ticket distribution system benefits politically. The programme presents the thesis that national football associations have a strong material motive to maintain good relations with FIFA's leadership if they receive ticket allocations that they can distribute or sell at high prices. Critics see such a mechanism as a form of loyalty-building: associations that derive direct financial benefit from major tournaments have less reason to oppose the organisation's president. The debate has become particularly heated because the 2026 World Cup, which is being held from 11 June to 19 July in Canada, Mexico and the United States of America, is already facing criticism over expensive tickets, dynamic pricing and the increasingly pronounced commercialisation of the tournament.
Deutschlandfunk describes a system in which tickets become more than a sporting product
According to a Deutschlandradio press release, Deutschlandfunk's five-part podcast deals with power structures, backstage manoeuvring and billion-dollar business in FIFA, with a particular emphasis on how Infantino has consolidated his position at the head of the organisation since 2016. According to Deutschlandradio's announcement, the series was prepared by Matthias Friebe and Maxi Rieger with investigative support from journalist Thomas Kistner, and its goal is to explain how a system works in which sporting, political and commercial power overlap. In that context, tickets are not presented merely as a means of filling stadiums, but as a resource that can have political value within FIFA's electoral architecture. Such a view is especially important because in FIFA much of the real power is not measured by public popularity, but by relations with the national associations that make up the organisation's Congress. If associations gain access through the tournament to valuable ticket allocations, critics argue that this can create a network of satisfaction and dependency.
The original objection does not mean that every ticket allocation is problematic in itself. Major tournaments traditionally have allocations for the associations whose national teams take part, with the aim of ensuring that some tickets go to fans who follow their national sides. However, the problem arises when prices reach a level at which tickets become goods with significant profit potential. According to claims cited in Deutschlandfunk's series, precisely that potential can give national associations an additional reason to be satisfied with the current leadership. In FIFA's political sense, this is a sensitive issue because member satisfaction does not stop at ticket sales, but can spill over into support at congresses, elections and the adoption of strategic decisions. For that reason, the debate about 2026 tickets cannot be reduced only to fan dissatisfaction, but must also be viewed as a debate about transparency in the governance of world football.
One association, one vote: why national federations are crucial
According to FIFA's 2024 statutes, each member has one vote at the FIFA Congress, regardless of market size, number of registered players or the sporting strength of the national team. The same document stipulates that the FIFA president is elected by the Congress for a four-year term in the year following the World Cup and that presidential candidacies can be proposed only by FIFA members, with the support of at least five associations. This means that small and large federations formally have equal electoral weight, so the president's political power is built through a broad coalition of national associations. In such a system, any kind of financial benefit, including development funds, access to major tournaments or potentially valuable ticket allocations, can have broader political significance. Critics therefore warn that FIFA's governance model creates a natural incentive to maintain loyalty towards the leadership that controls key flows of money and organisational privileges.
Gianni Infantino took over FIFA in February 2016, at a time when the organisation had been seriously shaken by corruption scandals and the fall of its long-standing leadership. Such a model is often defended as a democratic principle of global football because it gives a voice to smaller football environments as well. At the same time, the same model raises the question of whether broad support can be maintained through a combination of development, access to resources and personal political relationships, rather than only through publicly measurable governance results.
The 2026 World Cup is the biggest tournament in history, but also the most commercialised
According to FIFA's official information, the 2026 World Cup is being played for the first time with 48 national teams and 104 matches, in 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States of America. The expansion of the tournament has increased the number of matches, the number of markets and the overall amount of content that can be sold to broadcasters, sponsors, hospitality partners and fans. FIFA presents this growth as a global opportunity for football development, because more national teams gain access to the biggest stage, while revenues are, according to the organisation's claims, reinvested in men's, women's and youth football. But the same commercial logic has also created the greatest pressure on fans. Ticket prices, especially for attractive matches and the final stages of the tournament, have become one of the main sources of dissatisfaction, while dynamic pricing is seen as a sign that the World Cup is moving ever closer to the models of the American entertainment industry.
In December 2025, FIFA announced the introduction of a special Supporter Entry Tier category, with tickets priced at 60 US dollars for all 104 matches, including the final. According to that announcement, tickets in this category are intended for fans of qualified national teams, while selection and distribution are handled by individual national members, namely participating member associations. FIFA said at the time that during one random selection phase it had already received 20 million ticket requests and that 50 percent of each national team's allocation would be in two more affordable categories: 40 percent in the Supporter Value Tier category and 10 percent in the Supporter Entry Tier category. The organisation asked associations to allocate these tickets to loyal fans connected with the national teams, but at the same time left each association to define the criteria and application process itself. It is precisely this combination of central FIFA control and local discretion by national associations that further fuels the debate over who really benefits from the ticketing system.
Infantino defends market prices, fan organisations demand transparency
Gianni Infantino, according to an AFP report carried by Al Jazeera, defended high ticket prices in May 2026 by arguing that FIFA must take into account the market in which the tournament is being played. Speaking at the Milken Institute conference in Beverly Hills, he said that the World Cup is taking place in a market where the entertainment industry is the most developed and that market prices are therefore being applied. According to the same report, Infantino pointed out that FIFA had received more than 500 million ticket requests for the 2026 tournament, while the two previous World Cups together had fewer than 50 million requests. He also stated that 25 percent of tickets for the group stage had been available at a price below 300 US dollars. FIFA's argument comes down to the claim that excessively low initial prices would create even more room for resellers, especially in the United States of America, where the secondary sales market is developed and legally permitted.
Fan and consumer organisations reject such an explanation as insufficient. Football Supporters Europe and Euroconsumers filed a complaint with the European Commission in March 2026 over FIFA's ticket sales practices for the 2026 World Cup. According to their joint statement, the problem is not only the level of prices, but also the fact that dynamic pricing turns fan loyalty into a competition between buyers with different purchasing power. The statement claims that an organiser with a monopoly over the most sought-after tickets can increase prices without providing real additional value to spectators. FSE and Euroconsumers are therefore calling for fairer and more transparent sales conditions, especially for fans who have followed their national teams for years and for persons with disabilities. In the broader context, their complaint has become one of the most important institutional challenges to FIFA's ticketing model for the 2026 tournament.
Allocations for associations between fan protection and FIFA's political economy
The official logic of allocations for national associations rests on the idea that national teams should have their supporters in the stadiums, not only buyers who are willing to pay the most. In an ideal model, such allocations protect organised, long-standing and travelling fans from a market in which prices can quickly move beyond the realistic means of large numbers of people. But Deutschlandfunk's series raises the opposite question: what happens when those same allocations, because of the general level of prices and enormous demand, become financially extremely valuable for the associations themselves. If an association has the ability to manage access to sought-after tickets, it is managing not only the fan experience, but also an economic resource. In that sense, a ticket for a World Cup match can become part of a wider network of benefits that a national association links to FIFA tournaments.
This claim requires careful wording because publicly available official documents do not confirm a single pattern by which all associations would profit in the same way. FIFA emphasises in its official announcements that associations were asked to direct the most affordable tickets towards loyal fans and that World Cup revenues are reinvested in football. Still, the very fact that each national member defines the application and distribution criteria leaves room for differences in practice, and it is precisely in those differences that the question of oversight arises. For critics, the key issue is not only whether formal rules exist, but who checks their implementation, how data are publicly disclosed and whether fans can understand why some gained access to more affordable tickets while others did not. Without such transparency, the argument about tickets as a mechanism of loyalty remains politically powerful even when it is not possible to prove every individual abuse.
FIFA's financial model relies on returning money to its members
In defending its model, FIFA regularly invokes its status as a non-profit organisation and the development money it returns to its members. According to official information on the FIFA Forward programme, the organisation says the programme provides tailored support for football development in each of its 211 members and in six continental confederations. The 2025 financial documents state that in the 2023-2026 cycle each member could receive up to 3 million US dollars for project funding, up to 1.25 million dollars annually for operational costs and additional funds for travel, accommodation and equipment for those who need such support most. For many smaller associations, such amounts can be crucial for the functioning of national teams, infrastructure and administration. That is precisely why FIFA argues that strong World Cup revenues are not private profit, but the foundation of global football development.
However, the same development architecture shows why the FIFA president is politically extremely powerful. If a large number of members depend on FIFA funds, tournaments, travel support and the distribution of commercial revenues, the organisation's leadership becomes the central intermediary between global money and local football needs. In such a structure, members can simultaneously be beneficiaries of legitimate development aid and political actors who decide the president's future. Deutschlandfunk's argument about tickets builds on that logic: ticket allocations are not the only source of possible loyalty, but they can be another element in a broader system of benefits. Critics therefore do not necessarily claim that every association has been bought, but that the system produces strong incentives for obedience. The higher the revenues are and the more centralised access to resources becomes, the harder it is to separate development policy from electoral arithmetic.
The debate about prices becomes a debate about the governance of world football
As of 26 June 2026, the World Cup is still under way, and the issue of tickets has already emerged as one of its most important political topics. A tournament with 48 national teams was supposed to symbolise the broadening of access to global football, but for many fans entry into stadiums has become more expensive than ever. FIFA argues that market demand, secondary sales and enormous interest justify a different approach to pricing, while fan organisations warn that the World Cup should not function only as a luxury product. Deutschlandfunk's series further shifts the focus because it suggests that expensive tickets are not only a consumer problem, but also a possible instrument of FIFA's internal politics. If ticket allocations turn into a source of satisfaction for national associations, then behind every debate about price lies the question of votes, influence and control.
For FIFA, this is a sensitive point because after the scandals of the previous decade the organisation is trying to present itself as a reformed, more professional and financially more stable institution. Infantino often refers to revenue growth and investment in global football, and official documents do indeed show that FIFA has extensive development programmes. But public trust does not depend only on the amounts distributed, but also on the way decisions are made, explained and supervised. The debate opened by Deutschlandfunk is therefore likely to continue even after the end of the tournament, especially ahead of the next electoral cycle in FIFA. As long as national associations both vote on the president and depend on a system that the president symbolically and politically oversees, every valuable benefit, including tickets, will remain part of the larger debate about who really controls world football.
Sources:
- Deutschlandradio / Presseportal – press release on the podcast Behind The Games – Gianni Infantino (link)
- FIFA – official information on the 2026 World Cup, format, hosts and stadiums (link)
- FIFA – announcement on the Supporter Entry Tier category and distribution through associations (link)
- FIFA – 2024 Statutes on the Congress, voting and election of the president (link)
- FIFA – FIFA Forward programme and development funding for members (link)
- FIFA Annual Report 2025 – notes on funds through FIFA Forward 3.0 (link)
- Football Supporters Europe and Euroconsumers – complaint to the European Commission on ticket sales (link)
- Al Jazeera / AFP – report on Infantino's defence of ticket prices (link)