World Cup 26: Allegations of Illegal Ticket Pricing

MONDAY 01 JUNE 2026 - LONDON - So last weekend I caught up on the ticket prices for the World Cup as it now looks like I can be there this month after chairing the 2026 ICAEW Webinar on Sport.

Rather than kicking off with the usual spreadsheet of people, places and dates like I did for WAFCON in Morocco last year, this time I was shocked on sight as FIFA appeared to be advertising tickets up to USD 5.75m - for one match!

Admittedly, my cousin has expensive taste and it was Scotland v Brasil but surely this is not true?!

The Commercial Strategy Team of Gibson Alexander works with merchandising to gamify e-commerce and make it an enjoyable experience for buyers but this is a time-sensitive ticket site, not a game of Football Manager! I was wondering whether Scotland could get a Brasilian player for the USD 5.75m.

Then it got worse when I looked for other marketplaces... allegations of illegality by Attorneys General from California to New York and New Jersey.

In the November 2025 ICAEW Strategy meeting on Entertainment, Sport and Media, we were forecasting hot topics for 2026 and my suggestion was the use of AI to drive dynamic ticket pricing at the World Cup. But I did not think that the topic would be this "hot"...

As an "expert advisor" for venture capitalists on the impacts of AI in sport and professional services, my primary thought was that AI-driven dynamic ticket pricing should be the single most valuable application of AI to sport (and probably the entire entertainment industry) during 2026. Then I questioned how it would work. Of course, over the decades dynamic pricing became commonplace on buses, trains and planes where seat prices rise after each purchase. Following the drama around tickets for Oasis and the announcement of FIFA World Cup ticket prices, it looked like dynamic ticket pricing was finally kicking off in sports stadia. And it was coming with the wild west of AI.

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It's not as if they need to build new stadia for the World Cup in the USA. Indeed this is a world first for FIFA - a World Cup where they do not require a new stadium! Unlike Morocco in this video.

In 2023 AI was still a wild west of falsely-claimed capabilities (like cryptocurrency pre-pandemic). A decade ago I rescued a business which claimed it had AI and even its own employees suggested were not really true. Nevertheless, Gibson Alexander's priorities combined with the hype about ChatGPT etc and led me to invest in an introductory course on the development of AI and Automation but software like Dall-e just did not deliver what it said it could. However it now delivers like DHL. And today everyman and his dog uses ChatGPT or Claude.

So now what I want to know is: which factors and principles were guiding ticket pricing through these AI algorithms?

Is it just simple demand calculated by a count of eyeballs on the page?

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Or a weighted pipeline of demand (e.g. eyeballs loaded by calculations of individual wealth) from user data tracked and baked in cookies?

If I looked at the Ferrari website before checking World Cup tickets, will the algorithm add a probability that I might have Middle Eastern oil reserves?

Should people be given different prices based upon their perceived wealth? Is that ethical?

How did the AI acquire the data to drive the AI? Is it legal?

Even if it is legal, is this good or bad for the brand value?

In the case of Oasis, I wondered how much Noel & Liam damaged the value of their brand when fans claimed last year that they were fleeced for multiples more than advertised when they called the official telephone lines to purchase tickets?

Now the US authorities are gunning for FIFA again and this time they fired a shot two weeks before the tournament even starts on 11 June 2026. Not decades after the event like in 2010 when the FBI started investigating and in 2015 Swiss police finally incarcerated 14 leading figures of FIFA around the world for crimes stretching back 24 years.

Hopefully FIFA and its agents at least answered these questions before agreeing to sell a single World Cup ticket at USD 5.75m.

If I was allowed to bet, I would put money (not quite USD 5.75m) on FIFA having answered the legal ones.

Regardless of the legal queries that individuals from FIFA are being asked to answer, organisationally FIFA faces a more fundamental problem: brand trust.

For comparison, $5.75m is about the amount that Hearts would have won for finishing first in Scottish football this season. Although it has been 28 years since Scotland last qualified for the World Cup, even in 28 lives the average Scot could not save USD 5.75m.

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Even if the lower end of the price range (USD 1,322) could be affordable for the man, woman and child on the street, when agreeing a contract to sell tickets on its brand, your negotiator has to ask:

whether the highest possible price (USD 5.75m) will make fans think that you are enabling incredible levels of profiteering from fans through ticket pricing?

When I was negotiating licences in 2020 to make electric versions of classic supercars with Ferrari, Bugatti, Aston Martin, etc, for the protection of both parties, the product & service specifications with according price ranges were essential conditions to the agreement - meaning that a breach thereof would be serious and potentially repudiatory. The only way in which the price for any specification could be changed was by both parties executing a new agreement. I would be amazed if FIFA has not agreed such essential conditions for its tickets, given its half century of experience in selling global rights for broadcasting live events.

Now, the key questions for FIFA and its agents are: Who is carrying which liabilities in the FIFA World Cup ticket marketplace and how can they reduce them because, with only ten days till the tournament starts and swathes of tickets available, fans are clearly refusing to buy the tickets?

To answer these questions, a key action might be: read your contracts and ask Gibson Alexander for a relevant specialist lawyer & accountant to understand & evaluate the rights and obligations of each contract. In particular, Directors should double check:

a) What was agreed (starting with the contracts, even if unsigned) and then check:

b) Were all individuals involved authorised to do what they did?

c) Did they follow the pertinent processes?

As always, any questions, just ask.

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