FIFA launches desperate, deceptive ploy to sell Club World Cup tickets, with 2026 World Cup tied in

FIFA’s latest desperate ploy to sell the 2025 Club World Cup is a “first-of-its-kind offer” that, on the surface, sounds appealing.

Soccer’s global governing body on Thursday tempted fans to its novel, controversial club tournament, which will debut in the United States this summer, with “ticket packs” that include “guaranteed” access to the 2026 men’s World Cup — the grander international tournament that will also be held in the U.S. a year later.

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But buried in the fine print, and in a 16-page “Terms of Sale” document, are several caveats that make the offers seem deceptive or downright outlandish.

Buyers of a standard “pack,” which features tickets to two or three Club World Cup matches, “will be granted a guaranteed option to buy one ticket to a FIFA World Cup 26 match in the United States (excluding the final),” FIFA said in a Thursday release.

What it didn’t say, except in clause 4.2 of the Terms of Sale, is that FIFA, “in its sole discretion,” can determine which 2026 World Cup match(es), and what type of ticket(s), the fan will have access to.

In other words, first, the fan must pay a three-figure sum for Club World Cup tickets. Next, they mustn’t resell those tickets, and must actually use them — meaning they or a family member or friend must go to the game. And only then, months later, will they be offered the chance to pay another likely-three-figure sum for a 2026 World Cup ticket that may or may not be in the upper deck, to a match that may or may not be in the same city and may or may not feature interesting teams.

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That, however, sounds like a sensible deal compared to FIFA’s second offering, the “Super Ticket Pack.” This, FIFA said, is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”; the package “features one ticket per match to 20 FIFA Club World Cup 2025 matches,” and then “a guaranteed option to buy one ticket” to the 2026 World Cup final, the most prestigious event in all of sports.

The buyer of a “super ticket pack,” though, must “use all [20] tickets to attend all [20] matches,” and the matches must be on 20 different days — even though there are only 22 distinct Club World Cup matchdays.

In other words, a fan would have to plan an entire month of travel between some combination of Miami, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Orlando, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, Charlotte, Washington D.C., Seattle and Southern California. They’d have to spend thousands of dollars on flights, trains, ground transportation, lodging, tickets and more — and perhaps take weeks off work — to attend games in different cities on back-to-back-to-back days in June and July, simply for the right to spend a to-be-determined amount on a ticket to the World Cup final.

Alternatively, per the terms, they could share the pack with “guests” — someone with whom they’re “capable of demonstrating a pre-existing relationship.” Those guests could attend some of the 20 matches in their place. But still, among the fan and their guests, they’d get the right to buy only one 2026 World Cup ticket.

Ticket prices still ‘alarming’ for 2025, unknown for 2026

Ticket prices for 2026 have not yet been announced, and tickets won’t go on sale until the fall. FIFA has closely guarded all details.

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Ticket prices for the 2025 Club World Cup, meanwhile, are roughly the same as they were when first released in December, both on Ticketmaster and within this “ticket pack” promotion via FIFA. “Category 1” seats — those in lower levels — cost anywhere from $100 to upward of $200, before taxes and fees, in the group stage; they cost $2,600, plus taxes and fees, for the final.

“Category 2” seats — typically those in a stadium’s upper deck along the sideline — range from roughly $60 to $140 before taxes and fees in the group stage. Some cheaper tickets have been sold to supporters of the participating clubs. But the prices, which are far higher than those charged by the biggest European soccer clubs, were “alarming,” Bailey Brown, president of the Independent Supporters Council, a group representing soccer fans across the U.S. and Canada, told Yahoo Sports in December.

She said she and others were “genuinely concerned about the overall increase in the pricing of tickets for large tournaments in North America,” and worried that “many of the most passionate fans will be priced out of enjoying the sport because of it.”

FIFA, Infantino desperate to sell Club World Cup

With two months until kickoff, those worries seem prescient. Tens of thousands of tickets remain unsold for many matches. Even for the opener, between Inter Miami and Al Ahly at Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida, entire rows of seats — including a majority of those in lower-level corner sections, priced at $557 before tax — are available.

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In an effort to sell them, FIFA president Gianni Infantino — who has made himself, rather than Real Madrid or Lionel Messi, the face of the tournament — has been jetting from city to city, holding promotional events alongside soccer dignitaries and celebrities.

Last month, he leveraged his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump to bring the Club World Cup trophy into the Oval Office, and leave it there on display.

He used a media session alongside Trump to pump up the tournament and place it on par with the big World Cup. He made multiple unsubstantiated claims about the visitors it would attract, and about its economic impact. He even said the “the new competition” was one “that [he and Trump] created together.” (There is no evidence, and there had never been any previous suggestions, that Trump had anything to do with its creation.)

Infantino’s Instagram account is also awash with hyperbolized posts promoting the Club World Cup. FIFA and its partners, in messages to everyone from soccer fans to NFL season ticket holders, have been marketing the event as “the most prestigious club soccer tournament in history.” They have been telling stakeholders that it will be “as big as the last [men’s] World Cup,” according to multiple people who’ve heard FIFA’s pitch.

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In reality, however, although some fans around the world are enthused, many in Europe and the U.S. are skeptical.

Broadcaster were, too. Multiple people familiar with rights negotiations confirmed to Yahoo Sports that major TV networks offered significantly less money than Infantino wanted — and needed to cover expenses and prize money.

After attempting to drum up interest, FIFA and Infantino ultimately struck a global broadcast deal with DAZN, which soon thereafter announced an equivalent investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

And so, after years of uncertainty, the Club World Cup is happening. It will pay out $1 billion in appearance fees and prize money to the 32 participating clubs. But it remains to be seen whether fans will watch or buy tickets.