Taylor Swift outrage prompts World Cup host to defy FIFA over ticket resales

News

Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

The price of World Cup tickets has been a huge talking point over the past year as football fans travelling to North America face the most expensive tournament in history.

Tickets for group stage matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico are, on average, three times as expensive as the last World Cup in Qatar.

In addition to recent concerns about World Cup tickets in Canada, sport and entertainment fans responded in fury at the prices on resale platforms for the World Series and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in Toronto in 2024.

On StubHub, a single ticket for Taylor Swift’s Friday concert in Toronto in 2024 was at a minimum $4,654, while on SeatGeek it was $4,500 for the 500-level seats.

On the football side of things, FIFA has implemented dynamic pricing, which means increased demand leads to a rise in prices. The highest prices are currently found on resale platforms, some of which are owned by FIFA, as sellers name their price, having previously collected tickets in draws.

On official FIFA resale platforms, they are taking 15% commission on all tickets sold.

Places like Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, and Stubhub are also charging exorbitant amounts as the price is decided by the seller. This past week, two tickets went on sale for the World Cup final priced at $2.3 million each.

But, there's one venue that has defied FIFA to ban ticket scalping and that BMO Field in Toronto.

Toronto Stadium, named as such in the World Cup due to rights factors, will host six games at the 2026 World Cup: Canada vs Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ghana vs Panama, Germany vs Cote d’Ivoire and Panama vs Croatia, Senegal vs Iraw and one Round of 32 fixture.

All tickets for these matches are currently being sold at face value after a new legislation was passed in Ontario which bans ticket reselling, catalysed by the outrage at the price of Swift tickets.

FIFA's official marketplace and Ticketmaster no longer has tickets listed for matches in Toronto, though StubHub continues to, citing a lack of clear guidance in the new legislation.

According to a statement given to The Canadian Press, StubHub is still contending with unresolved issues regarding Ontario's new ticket resale laws.

Spokesperson Jack Sterne noted that while the company recently held a "productive conversation" with Stephen Crawford, the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, several "outstanding questions" remain.

"While there are still many outstanding questions, we appreciate their willingness to meet and are updating our systems to comply with Bill 97 going forward," Sterne said in an email, referring to the price cap law.

"FIFA will be subject to the cap, no exemptions," said Giulia Paikin, press secretary for Stephen Crawford.

SeatGeek and StubHub are against the sale cap because they believe that it will mean more tickets going on sale on platforms that are not regulated and so pose a risk to buyers.

"Price caps expose fans to a massive increase in ticket fraud, but don’t bring costs down. We will continue to work with Ontario through the implementation process and remind the Government that they were right when they found price caps 'unenforceable' just a few years ago," a StubHub spokesperson said in an email.

Joe Freeman, vice-president of government relations at SeatGeek, said: "Price controls on resale don’t lower what fans pay. They push transactions and fans off regulated platforms to sites like Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace, where there are no buyer protections and fraud rates are nearly four times higher."

Jay Goldberg, Canadian affairs manager of the Consumer Choice Center, says companies like Ticketmaster could simply charge higher prices for tickets.

"This isn't actually promoting more competition. This is actually just promoting, you know, more market share for Ticketmaster and more dominance," Goldberg said.

Though tickets have been removed completely from FIFA's marketplace and Ticketmaster, they will be relisted at face value in the coming days.

The FootballTransfers app

Check out FootballTransfers' new app for all of football's big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.

The FootballTransfers app is available in the Apple App Store. Download here:

•App Store