{"id":252677,"date":"2026-01-23T00:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/252677\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T00:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:41:08","slug":"infantino-jokes-about-british-fans-behaviour-at-world-cups-and-defends-ticket-prices-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/252677\/","title":{"rendered":"Infantino jokes about British fans\u2019 behaviour at World Cups and defends ticket prices | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gianni Infantino made a joke about British football fans\u2019 behaviour and defended ticket prices for this summer\u2019s World Cup in North America during a speech to world leaders on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Fifa\u2019s president addressed concerns around the staging of this summer\u2019s finals in the US amid rising domestic tensions there, telling the World Economic Forum in Switzerland how there had been \u201ca lot of critics\u201d before Qatar 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the ball started rolling and the magic started we had virtually no incidents. For the first time in history also, no Brit was arrested during a World Cup<\/a>. Imagine! This is something really, really special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was a celebration, it was a party, and the next one in the United States, Canada and Mexico will be exactly the same. People want occasions to meet, to come together, to spend time, to celebrate, and this is what we try to give them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the Fifa<\/a> president\u2019s comments, the Football Supporters\u2019 Association said: \u201cWhile we\u2019ve got Mr Infantino\u2018s attention, we\u2019d like to point out that rather than making cheap jokes about our fans, he should concentrate on making cheap tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infantino said the finals would be \u201cthe greatest celebration of humanity\u201d, despite human rights groups voicing concerns about a number of policies adopted by the Donald Trump administration, and went on to address criticism of ticket prices.<\/p>\n

Fifa said it had received more than 500 million requests for tickets during the most recent application window which ended on 13 January. The second-cheapest category for the final cost $4,185 (\u00a33,100), with only a tiny percentage available in the cheapest $40 category, leading to intense criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tickets are not cheap,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were hammered. I was hammered, I should say, because of the ticket prices, because they are so expensive. And the main critics were from Germany and England, of course. Now, No 1 in ticket requests is the US. No 2, Germany, No 3, England, because everyone wants to come and to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fifa has not released details of how the demand for tickets is spread between the 104 matches or cost categories, but Infantino confidently stated: \u201cEvery match will be sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that because of Fifa\u2019s ticket resale platform, \u201cthose tickets will probably be resold at even higher prices\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis is incredible, but it shows really the impact that it has. To give you another number, to compare this in 100 years of World Cup history, Fifa has sold around 50 million tickets in total. For this World Cup, in these four weeks we have the request for 1,000 years of World Cups at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unique, it\u2019s incredible, but I think it shows really that people have trust in the organisation, probably trust in Fifa as well. Trust in Canada, Mexico, the United States. They want to travel. They want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infantino said reports that fans from certain countries could be denied visas to enter the United States were \u201cnot true\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spectators from Haiti, Iran and Senegal in particular are expected to struggle to be granted entry to the US, but Infantino said: \u201cThe United States, Canada and Mexico will welcome the world next summer, and this is what we are looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gianni Infantino made a joke about British football fans\u2019 behaviour and defended ticket prices for this summer\u2019s World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-252677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}