Even Donald Trump doesn't appear to like the World Cup's sky-high ticket prices

Jonathan Tannenwald, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 7, 2026

Published in Soccer

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PHILADELPHIA — The chorus of critics of FIFA’s sky-high World Cup ticket prices has gained a surprising new member: President Donald Trump.

In an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday, Trump was told that prices for the United States’ opener against Paraguay in suburban Los Angeles on June 12 are averaging over $1,000 on resale markets.

“I did not know that number,” Trump said. “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.”

The odds are pretty good that Trump will be there — perhaps even seated next to FIFA president Gianni Infantino. But Trump certainly won’t have to pay for the seat, or any other sum that soccer fans will have to fork over this summer.

He said, too, that “I haven’t seen that [news], but I would have to take a look at it.”

Though Trump praised the World Cup’s reported five million tickets sold as “extremely successful” and “setting every record in the book,” he seemed to have a soft spot for some of the people who’ve been shut out.

“If people from Queens and Brooklyn and all of the people that love Donald Trump can’t go, I would be disappointed, but, you know, at the same time, it’s an amazing success,” he said. “I would like to be able to have the people that voted for me to be able to go.”

Trump gave the interview a few hours after Infantino spoke at the Milken Global Conference for big-money investors and other elites in Los Angeles.

“We are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates,” Infantino said, though as customary, he said nothing about why FIFA feels required to do it.

He also said that “you cannot go to watch in the U.S. a college game, not even speaking about a top professional game of a certain level, for less than $300.” That remark was dunked on by lots of people.

One perfect example is here in Philadelphia, where most Temple football tickets are under $40 in the same stadium where World Cup games will be played next month.

A few days after not speaking with the media at the FIFA Congress, Infantino clearly felt much more comfortable letting loose among the Milken crowd.

“There will be hordes of barbarians invading and conquering America,” he said at one point. “But happy barbarians. This is our crowd, the soccer crowd. They will invade America. They will bring joy and happiness, and an emotion that people are not used to.”

It was just another day on the road to the World Cup.