LAUSANNE: The Football Supporters Europe (FSE) group filed a lawsuit on Tuesday with the European Commission against football's world governing body FIFA over "excessive ticket prices" for this year's World Cup finals.
"Euroconsumers and Football Supporters Europe (FSE) have filed a formal complaint with the European Commission against FIFA, alleging that the football body has abused its monopoly position to impose excessive ticket prices and opaque and unfair purchasing conditions and processes on European fans ahead of the 2026 World Cup," the FSE said in a statement.
"FIFA holds a monopoly over ticket sales for the 2026 World Cup and has used that power to impose conditions on fans that would never be acceptable in a competitive market," the group added.
The FSE said the prices for the final on July 19 are way above those for the 2022 final in Qatar.
"The cheapest openly available final tickets now start at $4,185 –- more than seven times the cost of the cheapest 2022 World Cup final ticket," they said.
By contrast, it said the cheapest UEFA Euro 2024 final tickets were 95 euros $100).
"FIFA's own bid documents projected an average ticket price of $1,408 but that number has been left far behind," FSE added.
According to FIFA, almost seven million tickets have been made available for the sport's showpiece event being co-hosted by Canada, the US and Mexico.
Each person can buy a maximum of four tickets per match and a total of 40 for the whole competition.
There will be a total of 104 matches played at this expanded World Cup, the first ever to feature 48 teams, and ticket prices have soared for the most in-demand games.
FSE said the North American bid had initially promised tickets would be available from as little as $21, but instead the cheapest tickets to go on sale have been for $60, for example for the Group J opener between Austria and Jordan at the Levi's Stadium in California.
Most tickets cost at least $200 for matches involving leading nations.
Some tickets on offer for the final on FIFA's official resale site are being offered at astronomical prices.
One category three seat for the game at the MetLife Stadium was being advertised for an eye-watering $143,750, over 41 times its original face value of $3,450.