{"id":496843,"date":"2026-06-12T23:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496843\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T23:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:22:09","slug":"world-cup-2026-fifa-claims-fans-staying-on-concourses-are-reason-for-empty-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496843\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Fifa claims fans staying on concourses are reason for empty seats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fifa says numerous empty seats were visible in the near-sell-out Group A match between South Korea and the Czech Republic because of fans remaining on concourses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Football&#8217;s world governing body announced an attendance of 44,985 at the 46,000-seat Estadio Akron in Guadalajara, leading to accusations they exaggerated the number of people in the stadium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The discrepancy followed pre-tournament criticism of ticket pricing and questions over demand for a number of matches in the expanded 48-team World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Official attendance figures reflect the number of tickets scanned and spectators present within the stadium footprint, rather than visual assessments of seating occupancy at any given moment during the match,&#8221; Fifa said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Fifa works closely with stadium authorities and ticketing teams to ensure all published figures are based on verified operational data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Please note that, during last night&#8217;s match in Guadalajara, several ticketed fans could be seen standing in concourses rather than staying in their assigned seats throughout the match.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The organisers also issued a picture showing a mostly full stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa says numerous empty seats were visible in the near-sell-out Group A match between South Korea and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-496843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}