FIFA World Cup 2026: Empty Stadiums, Angry Fans Over Body's High Prices Of Match Tickets

Empty seats at the South Korea vs Czech Republic World Cup match have become a huge talking point. Fans are blaming FIFA's crazy high ticket prices for the low turnout, making the pre-tournament controversy over pricing even worse.

Mexico City: South Korea kicked off their World Cup journey with a solid 2-1 win against the Czech Republic. But more than their great comeback, the real story was the empty seats at the Estadio Akron stadium. The reason? FIFA's sky-high ticket prices.

Even though FIFA officially announced that 44,985 fans attended the match, many parts of the 46,000-seater stadium were visibly empty.

This just proves what everyone was saying – the ticket prices for the first-ever 48-team World Cup are just too high for the common fan. There was already a lot of debate about ticket prices even before the tournament began. Just a day before the World Cup started, FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended the rates, saying they weren't high compared to other major global sports events. However, with photos of empty stands now going viral, fans and fan associations are hitting back hard at FIFA.

Many fans who did make it to the stadium pointed out that the crazy ticket prices were the main reason for the low turnout. According to the numbers, there has been a massive hike in ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup compared to the 2022 Qatar World Cup. While FIFA claims there's a huge demand for tickets, reports suggest that around 180,000 tickets were still left on FIFA's official resale platform right before the tournament kicked off.

FIFA, on its part, insists that public interest in the tournament hasn't dropped at all. Infantino recently said that the demand for tickets was ten times more than they expected and that over 6 million tickets have already been sold for the entire tournament. This whole ticket controversy has also sparked major political debates in the United States.