{"id":744666,"date":"2026-06-18T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/744666\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T09:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:25:09","slug":"fifa-plays-down-reports-that-ticketless-fans-breached-security-at-england-world-cup-game-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/744666\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa plays down reports that ticketless fans breached security at England World Cup game | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifa has played down reports that ticketless England supporters were able to gain entry for the World Cup opener against Croatia<\/a> after evading security checks at the Dallas Stadium.<\/p>\n

An unspecified number of fans without tickets are said to have made their way into the ground despite a huge security operation being put in place at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington. Officials said that snipers were in place inside the stadium, with the Arlington police department deploying \u201chighly trained personnel and specialised resources\u201d at the venue.<\/p>\n

But despite those measures and some fans having paid thousands of pounds for tickets, there were widespread reports of supporters without tickets gaining access.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was ridiculous,\u201d one fan told the Daily Mail<\/a>. \u201cThere were big gaps at the side of the ticket barriers and people just strolled through. There were volunteers who were basically old ladies and they weren\u2019t stopping anyone. I scanned my ticket because I had one, but nobody checked my flag or my trophy. Loads just walked through while others just jumped over the top. There were huge gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another told the Times<\/a>: \u201cThe security checks weren\u2019t great. They wanted people to flash tickets, but many didn\u2019t. The turnstile itself was quite easy to jump over. Quite a few managed to jib in.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Fifa spokesperson said: \u201cAt this stage, we have no indication of fans entering the stadium without a valid match ticket for the game in question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some England fans were also forced to remove flags from certain areas of the ground after stewards intervened. According to the Telegraph<\/a>, they threatened to confiscate the flags if they weren\u2019t taken down. One fan from London, Dan, who had an Arsenal and England flag, said: \u201cFor the amount of money we have paid it is a joke. But what can you do? It is another occasion where football fans are getting treated like cattle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has played down reports that ticketless England supporters were able to gain entry for the World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-744666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}