It is a degrading experience to try to purchase tickets to a hugely anticipated event, and nothing fits that description better than the World Cup. So you can imagine why fans who successfully navigated the labyrinth of presale codes and lotteries and came out of it with a premium ticket might be upset to discover that their money didn't actually buy what they thought it would.
A new report from The Athletic details a devious little switcheroo that FIFA seems to have played on fans who purchased Category 1 tickets for this summer's games. For weeks, Category 1 was the most expensive ticketing tier that fans could buy into, and many of them certainly did hoping that they would be assigned a seat in the lower bowl. The seating maps that FIFA released showed that Category 1 tickets could be allocated across a wide range of seats, but certainly gave the impression that it was possible to get one close to the field.
On Wednesday, The Athletic reported that fans who had purchased Category 1 tickets were receiving their seating assignments only to discover that they'd been placed in a Category 2 section. It turns out that many of those sections in the lower bowl had been set aside for people who purchased even more expensive hospitality packages, and that Category 1 ticket buyers never really stood a chance at getting assigned a seat in those sections.
And then, this week, FIFA got even more brazen. The Athletic reports that for at least 20 games a new tier of tickets have been released, which FIFA is calling Front Category 1 and Front Category 2. These tickets are far more expensive than the original Category 1 and Category 2 tickets, and seem to grant fans seats in sections that were initially included in the Category 1 tier. From The Athletic:
For Algeria vs. Austria at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., for example, dozens of seats in the second row at the four corners of the stadium were priced at $900 apiece — twice as much as a standard Category 1 ticket that, if bought this winter, seemingly should have been eligible for placement in those exact same rows and sections.
Listings were similar for other matches. For Canada’s opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12, a “Front Category 1” seat — in row 5 of a sideline section near the corner of Toronto’s BMO Field — cost $3,360, up from $2,240 for a regular Category 1 ticket.
Unless you are obscenely wealthy, it is impossible to spend thousands of dollars on a ticket to a sporting event and not feel a pit of anxiety form in your stomach. Thanks to FIFA, a lot of people who had that experience this winter now also get to feel like suckers.
