World Cup Kicks Off with Record-High Ticket Prices

The World Cup starts Thursday, and FIFA is charging record prices at the 11 stadiums in the United States, three in Mexico and two in Canada.

FIFA is using dynamic pricing and has repeatedly raised the prices since tickets first went on sale last fall. FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended those prices Wednesday as fitting in the North American market, but they have been criticized for list prices that have reached five figures.

Here's where things stand on the eve of the World Cup opener:

Several venues have sold out, but there are seats available for most games.

On the eve of the tournament, 29 games were sold out (with wheelchair seats available for some of those) and 75 had tickets remaining, including both semifinals, all four quarterfinals, five round of 16 matches and 14 of 16 games in the new round of 32. That's in addition to unreleased knockout-stage tickets that won't be available until FIFA knows which teams have advanced to specific matches.

Many of those available tickets are in the high-priced category one and category two levels added by FIFA in April.

Several hundred seats, all costing four figures, were available for the semifinal in Arlington, Texas, but just over 20 were on sale for the Atlanta semifinal on FIFA's official tickets site.

There aren't many relatively cheap seats left

Category three seats, the lowest-priced category, remained for just three matches. Two of those were high-priced to begin with.

Those lower-priced tickets for the US opener against Paraguay on Thursday at Inglewood, California, could be bought for USD 1,120 - but just two remained. Other available prices for the game were USD 4,105, USD 2,735, USD 2,330 and USD 1,645. More than 100 tickets were listed as available.

Category three also was available for Canada's opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Thursday at Toronto for USD 980 along with seats at USD 2,240 and USD 1,645.

Category three seats priced at USD 180 remained for just one match, Egypt vs Iran at Seattle on June 26, and more than 370 were on sale. Several hundred tickets also were available at USD 1,000, USD 875 and USD 550.

More tickets will become available closer to match days

Infantino said that "there are always tickets on sale."

In addition to tickets given back to FIFA, the governing body holds back seats.

"We also need always to keep some tickets for those teams who qualify for the additional rounds," he said.

There are some better deals available on resale markets

FIFA has its own resale marketplace, where it collects 15 per cent from both the buyer and seller.

In addition, other resale sites such at StubHub and SeatGeek have tickets for sale.

FIFA's resale site has tickets for the Paraguay-US game starting at USD 661.25 and SeatGeek starting at USD 920. England's game against Croatia at Arlington, Texas, on June 17 started at USD 880 on Seat Geek and USD 850 on FIFA.

Tickets for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, started at USD 7,986 on SeatGeek, USD 8,775 on StubHub and USD 9,085 on FIFA.