Many fans rejoiced as FIFA announced on Tuesday that it has slashed ticket prices on this coming summer’s grand event.
Amid the massive backlash over the exorbitant prices of tickets for the sport’s marquee event — with six taking place in Toronto — FIFA has announced a new Supporter Entry Tier of tickets which is set at $82 each and is available for all 104 matches, including the final in East Rutherford, N.J.
During the most recent phase of the ticket allocation process, prices for the games set to be played at BMO Field — which will be rebranded as Toronto Stadium for the event — started at $195 for the matches between Ghana and Panama, and Senegal and an intercontinental playoff winner.
However, if you wanted to take in Canada’s opening match, on June 12 against the winner of a European playoff, the range goes from $1,300 all the way up to $3,035.
While the price chop undoubtedly is good news and creates more opportunities for fans to attend matches, the new tier of tickets is comparatively small and hard to attain.
Only a few hundred tickets
The number of cheaper tickets for each game reportedly is likely to range between 400 to 750 per team — roughly 1% of stadium capacity.
The other seemingly sizable hurdle is the process of how the tickets will be allotted.
According to a press release on Tuesday afternoon, the new tier of tickets “will be allocated specifically to supporters of qualified teams, with the selection and distribution process managed individually by the Participating Member Associations.”
FIFA also stated that “each PMA will define its own eligibility criteria and application process.”
Winning another lottery
In the case of Canada Soccer’s ‘CanadaRED’ supporter group program, fans can sign up for free memberships, but will have limited chance at the tickets.
While the site lists the top benefit of the free tier being “access to apply for tickets through Canada Soccer’s FIFA World Cup Ticket Allocation,” the fine print states that “tickets through Canada Soccer’s FIFA World Cup Ticket allocation are subject to availability and accessed through a weighted random draw based on your CanadaRED tier.
“If not selected at their current tier level, members automatically enter the draw for the next lower tier until selected or all other tiers are exhausted.”
Canada Soccer lists five paid membership tiers above the free “Starter” tier, with the highest “Icon” level costing $5,000 per year.
That would presumptively mean that there will be five draws for the cheaper tickets before any member of the free membership tier would even be included in the lottery.
The Football Supporters Europe group, which represents grass-roots fan groups, said in a statement that the limited price cut was “an appeasement tactic due to the global negative backlash.”
“This shows that FIFA’s ticketing policy is not set in stone, was decided in a rush, and without proper consultation,” the group said in a statement.
Despite the outcry over ticket prices, FIFA said that it has received more than 20 million requests during this random selection draw sales phase alone, which began on Dec. 11.