There’s a line every proper football fan knows by heart: the World Cup is the people’s tournament. The one competition that still belongs to everyone your neighbour who watches every four years, the kid learning chants on YouTube, the lifelong away-day addict who’d sell a kidney for a last-16 ticket.
So tell me this: if FIFA can crank the prize pot up by 50%, why are supporters being hit with ticket prices more than double what they were in Qatar?
That’s the part that sticks in the throat. Because it screams what modern football has been flirting with for years: the spectacle is for the cameras, but the bill is for the fans.
FIFA’s logic: more money in, more money out
FIFA will say the expanded prize money is “good for the game” and in a lot of places, that’s true. Smaller federations rely on FIFA funding to build pitches, run youth systems, pay coaches, keep the lights on. In those countries, a World Cup cheque can change football history.
But here’s where it gets messy: the biggest winners of bigger prize money are often the federations that already live in football’s penthouse.
Take a heavyweight nation like Spain. Their federation’s finances aren’t exactly hanging by a thread we’re talking budgets in the hundreds of millions. Add a multi-million World Cup payout on top and you have to ask the question fans are asking louder now:
Does the game benefit more from paying federations… or from letting people actually get in?
Because atmosphere isn’t a side dish at a World Cup it’s the whole meal.
You can build the most futuristic stadium on earth, but if the stands are filled with corporate seats and resale-price tourists, you don’t get goosebumps. You get polite clapping and a wave that dies by minute 12.
The World Cup doesn’t become iconic because of VIP lanyards it becomes iconic because tens of thousands of ordinary supporters turn it into a living, breathing riot of colour and noise.
And that’s why the ticket furore matters.
Here’s the simple fix football fans can see from a mile away
If FIFA genuinely wants to look like the guardian of the sport (and not just the landlord), then parts of that expanded revenue should go straight into access:
- Proper discounts for disabled fans and companions not “sorry, full price only.”
- A meaningful allocation of tickets for the culture carriers the drum-luggers, the flag-wavers, the supporters’ clubs that actually make the World Cup feel like the World Cup.
- Less price-gouging chaos dynamic pricing and resale spirals turn a football match into a stock market.
It wouldn’t even dent FIFA’s ability to pay teams. Especially when the numbers being floated are so huge that the 2026 champions could end up taking around $50 million, depending on the final structure of the pot something that’s been discussed in coverage of the 2026 prize-money increase).
So… do teams “need” the 50% hike?
Need? No. Not in the way fans “need” affordable tickets to be part of the tournament. A federation can use extra millions wisely grassroots pitches, women’s football, coaching networks, community clubs or it can waste it in ways fans never see.
Meanwhile, a supporter priced out doesn’t just miss a match; they miss a once-in-a-lifetime moment that football was meant to give them.
That’s the crossroads FIFA is standing at right now:
- Keep building a World Cup that rewards institutions and extracts from supporters, or
- Build a World Cup that still feels like it belongs to the world.
Because the truth every die hard fan knows is this: football isn’t a product until the people show up and make it real. And if the people can’t afford to walk through the gates, sooner or later the magic stops walking in too.
