The U.S. men’s national soccer team opens its FIFA World Cup campaign against Paraguay on Friday. The much-mooted event stands out for one reason among many; tickets are still on sale for the contest in Los Angeles.
The thousands of spare, unsold seats at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, cast fresh questions about demand and pricing structure for what FIFA pre-sold as one of the tournament’s marquee fixtures.
NPR reports FIFA’s own direct ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for contest. Elsewhere resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA’s own online trading marketplace — also shows over three thousand tickets on sale.
The remaining tickets for the match at the 69,650,-seat stadium are available at around $900-$1,000 for the cheapest.
The total number of tickets still available for the World Cup kick off is higher than that for Canada’s opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, according to NPR.
The sluggish sales have sparked a backlash from fans, many of whom have blamed FIFA’s pricing strategy for keeping supporters away.
A Reddit thread discussing the match drew hundreds of reactions, with one fan calling the situation a “complete embarrassment” and arguing FIFA had “priced tickets like it’s the Super Bowl.”
Anyone keen to be at the SoFi stadium will find listings on StubHub and SeatGeek show fans can still access seats for under $1,000, depending on location and fees, the NY Post reports.
It is all a far cry from the huge demand FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino was boasting about earlier this year, when he talked about all 104 matches of the World Cup being essentially “sold out,” as Newsweek reports.
Overall the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico is on track to be the most expensive contest ever for match-going fans, AFP notes
The cheapest general sale tickets for the final are four times as expensive as they were for the final in Qatar in 2022, and represent only a small proportion of total seats.
The most expensive ticket for the final in 2022 was around $1,600 at face value, while in 2026 it is about $11,000.
President Donald Trump has blasted World Cup ticket prices, saying he would not pay over $1,000 to see a contest.
“I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you,” the president said last month.