Football’s global governing body FIFA said Wednesday it had received more than 500 million requests for tickets to this year’s World Cup despite rumbling controversy over sky-high prices to attend the event.
FIFA said in a statement it had received applications from fans in all of its 211 member nations and territories for the tournament staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The window for submitting requests to be entered in a lottery which will allocate tickets closed on Tuesday. FIFA said fans would be notified of whether their requests had been successful “no earlier than 5 February.”
Outside of the tournament’s host nations, FIFA said the heaviest demand came from fans in Germany, England, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Colombia.
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The most requested ticket was Colombia’s clash with Portugal in Miami on June 27, followed by Mexico’s game against South Korea in Guadalajara on June 18, and the World Cup final in New Jersey on July 19.
“Half a billion ticket requests in just over a month is more than demand – it’s a global statement,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said. “I would like to thank and congratulate football fans everywhere for this extraordinary response.”
“Knowing how much this tournament means to people around the world, our only regret is that we cannot welcome every fan inside the stadiums.”
FIFA has faced sharp criticism over its ticket pricing strategy for the 48-team tournament, with fan groups branding the cost as “extortionate” and “astronomical.”
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said ticket prices were almost five times higher than at the 2022 tournament in Qatar.
Those criticisms prompted FIFA to introduce a new category of cut-price tickets in December set at 60 US dollars (51 euros) each.