May 26 – New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has secured a rare concession from FIFA, negotiating 1,000 World Cup tickets priced at $50 to be distributed by ballot exclusively to local residents, making it the only citywide access programme of its kind at the tournament.
The tickets cover seven matches at MetLife Stadium in neighbouring New Jersey, including five group-stage fixtures, a R32 and R16 tie, but not the July 19 final. At $50, they are the cheapest seats available on FIFA’s primary market, and winners will also receive free round-trip bus travel. By comparison, Category 3 seats for the R32 match were priced at $280 and the R16 at $415.
Mamdani, as part of his mayoral campaign, demanded FIFA abandons dynamic pricing, caps resales, and reserves 15 per cent of tickets for local residents at a discount. The ballot opened yesterday with up to 50,000 daily applicants. Winners, drawn at random, may purchase up to two non-transferable tickets each, issued only on match day to prevent resale.
“This program exists because the mayor was determined to make sure working New Yorkers would be in the stands when the World Cup comes home to New York,” said Mamdani’s World Cup czar Maya Handa. “A kid in the Bronx, a security guard in Queens, a restaurant worker in Brooklyn or Staten Island — they are going to walk into the stadium this summer because their city fought for them to be there.”
Sources said FIFA was initially reluctant, wary of setting a precedent allowing local politicians to create parallel discounted markets. The deal also wobbled over the region’s transit costs before host committee CEO Alex Lasry, backed by Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul, helped force them down.
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