{"id":732763,"date":"2026-06-12T22:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732763\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T22:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:49:09","slug":"tickets-are-very-expensive-mexican-president-sheinbaum-explains-why-she-did-not-attend-world-cup-opener-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732763\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tickets are very expensive\u2019: Mexican president Sheinbaum explains why she did not attend World Cup opener | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, explained on Friday why she was absent from the Estadio Azteca during Mexico\u2019s opening match with South Africa<\/a>, saying tickets to the match were unaffordable for most Mexicans and that she had given her ticket to a young female soccer fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cStadium tickets are very expensive,\u201d Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference. \u201cAs president it\u2019s better that I give my place to someone who couldn\u2019t have gone, who loves football, especially a young woman, and I can celebrate it with the people for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

The soaring ticket prices for World Cup<\/a> matches have become a major point of contention for the tournament, particularly in Mexico where tickets selling for an average of $3,000 are unthinkable to the majority of Mexicans who would barely make that in a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few people can pay a ticket at that price,\u201d Sheinbaum added. The young woman Sheinbaum referred to was Yolett Cervantes Cuaquehua, who won a national contest held by the Mexican government to claim the president\u2019s ticket and sat in the VIP section to watch the game.<\/p>\n

Cervantes, an Indigenous Nahua athlete from the state of Veracruz, submitted a viral video<\/a> of herself wearing traditional dress and juggling a soccer ball with her bare feet. She beat 1,000 other finalists from across Mexico.<\/p>\n

In the video, Cervantes explains that when she was eight, she won a state poetry contest: the prize was a trip to Spain to watch a soccer match. \u201cComing home I was in love with football, and at that moment I forgot about poetry,\u201d she says. \u201cMy father trained me for four years. After two years I could juggle the ball 3,000 to 4,000 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announcing the contest in March, Sheinbaum framed it as a way to empower young women in the sport. \u201cFor many years, doors were closed to us \u2013 preventing us from becoming referees, soccer players, commentators or sports hosts,\u201d she said at a news conference. \u201cToday, we want to open those doors to women and their rights, so they can be whatever they want to be and have every opportunity to achieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Sheinbaum watched the match along with hundreds of other fans at one of 18 neighbourhood viewing spots set up by the Mexico<\/a> City government across the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, explained on Friday why she was absent from the Estadio Azteca during Mexico\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-732763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}