California AG Rob Bonta calls foul on FIFA for World Cup ticket pricing practices
With less than a month to go until the FIFA World Cup kicks off in California, state Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing back against the global soccer federation’s ticket pricing.
Bonta sent FIFA a letter Wednesday raising questions about customers feeling deceived by the seats they were assigned based on the price they paid, following a New York Times investigation published in April. Bonta requested the soccer federation provide his office with information on how the tickets were priced and how it plans to remediate the situation with ticket holders.
“My office is particularly concerned about recent reports that FIFA sold tickets by categories based on seating zones depicted on stadium maps but then changed those seat categorizations before assigning precise seat locations,” Bonta’s letter read.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be played at 16 venues across the U.S., Mexico and Canada — including two NFL stadiums in California: Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The tournament is slated to start on Thursday, June 11, and the first California game, between the U.S. and Paraguay, will be played the following day in Inglewood.
Bonta pushes back against FIFA ticketing practices
In his Wednesday letter to the federation, Bonta emphasized California’s consumer protection laws against unfair competition and false advertising.
“California law affords consumers important and robust protections ... including strict prohibitions on marketing practices that are likely to mislead them,” the letter read. “Moreover, businesses and organizations cannot defend such practices by relying upon fine print or terms disclosed elsewhere that a reasonable consumer would not have reviewed or understood.”
“Californians should be able to trust the seats they purchase match the representations made during the sales period,” Bonta said in a news release Wednesday. “We look forward to receiving the requested information from FIFA as part of our ongoing review.”
FIFA stipulated in its ticket terms that the ticket categories on the seating maps would not necessarily “reflect the actual layout and boundaries of a particular Stadium,” and that a ticket’s seat location could be changed at any time “provided that the Seat Location is in an area applicable to the same Ticket Category or a Ticket Category of Tickets with a comparable or better value.”
A FIFA spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Sacramento Bee’s request for comment on Bonta’s letter.
FIFA’s category-based ticketing system
For all 104 World Cup matches, FIFA set ticket prices by splitting stadiums into four categories depending on each seat’s location. Fans would request seats in a certain pricing tier, and FIFA would then assign a specific seat within the selected category.
Some fans reported to the New York Times that after paying for a ticket in the most expensive Category 1, the seat they were assigned was later designated a Category 2 ticket, which FIFA priced at hundreds of dollars cheaper.
In California, ticket holders may not have had access to seats they initially expected. According to the New York Times, initial seating maps prior to the ticket sales period for the June 12 game at SoFi Stadium showed Category 1 giving match attendees a chance to sit in the best seats — along the sidelines and behind the goal. However, the newspaper reported that once officially on sale, these $2,700 tickets were limited to the 200-level sections in the corners and ends of the field.
The investigation later found the sideline and some other 100-level tickets appeared to be allocated for specialty hospitality packages, priced at up to $6,050 per person.
Other high-profile games at different stadiums seemed to have similar conditions, but matches with lower demand had wider availability, according to the New York Times story, cited by Bonta in Wednesday’s news release.
For Levi’s Stadium’s first match — between Switzerland and Qatar on June 13 — FIFA’s hospitality website shows seats reserved on the 100-level ranging from $3,100 to $3,400 as of Thursday. The “Last-Minute Sales” portal and the online resale market indicated Category 1 tickets in sideline sections 112 and 118 were available for this match starting at $900, with lower-tier Category 2 seats starting at $455. The online resale market for the same match showed Category 1 seats at sideline sections 114 and 116, closer to midfield, starting at about $1,499.
What California AG wants from FIFA
The attorney general requested FIFA pass along various pieces of information to his office prior to May 29 for an assessment into any violations of state law. Requested information included:
- A copy of each California stadium map posted when tickets originally went on sale in October, with the dates they were displayed.
- A copy of each webpage showing the category-based ticket purchasing process for games in California, with the dates they were displayed.
- The number of California ticket buyers who were issued seats that were in a lower category than was indicated during the ticket’s sale, and an explanation of efforts to assign these buyers a seat in a “comparable or better than” category.
- Any disclosures FIFA provided to consumers that the federation was able to change the ticket category boundaries after a ticket’s sale.
- Any refunds, discounts or other remediations FIFA gave to California ticket buyers affected by post-purchase category changes.
Bonta in his news release said California ticket buyers “who believe they were misled” can report their complaints online at oag.ca.gov/report.
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