The 2026 FIFA World Cup is about to kick off – no pun intended. It is an exciting tournament, and while I am not a fanatical soccer fan, I share the sense of excited anticipation. Soccer is an exciting game, and the skill and resilience required to play it skilfully is remarkable.

Teams from around the world will gather for a football competition to be held across three countries – the first time that has ever been scheduled. Matches will take place in the United States, Mexico and Canada. There are 48 teams participating, an increase from 32 in previous world cups.

The FIFA World Cup is being heavily promoted in Australia, and SBS television has a schedule of matches up and running on its website. Diehard soccer fans in Sydney will have to get up in the wee morning hours to view some matches – for instance, on Tuesday June 16, if you want to watch Belgium and Egypt square off, you will have to be up at 4.30am.

That match is after the Spain vs Cabo Verde fixture at 1.30am.

Apart from the millions watching on television, the matches attract thousands of spectators. Mexico City Stadium, one of the venues for the World Cup, can hold 83 000 fans.

Now that I have mentioned spectators, let’s focus on them for a minute. Buying a ticket is an expensive proposition. In fact, FIFA has faced strenuous criticism for pricing most working class fans out of the game.

One ticket for the World Cup final is around 4000 dollars. The English Football Association distributed the pricing structure of the World Cup games to its fans. The cheapest tickets are at least 265 dollars, and those prices increase as you get closer to the finals.

Add to that prices for air fare, accomodation and general expenses while traveling, and you are looking at spending thousands of dollars. FIFA has been accused of extortionate ticket prices, and that accusation is easy to believe.

I am always happy when the teams from smaller and poorer nations make it to the World Cup. Haiti for instance, is fielding a team in this year’s competition. That is wonderful, and I will be cheering loudly for Haiti.

However, consider the following; in 2025, the average net monthly salary in Haiti was between 250 and 335 dollars per month. How is a one thousand dollar ticket affordable to most Haitians?

Let us also remember that FIFA has been plagued by numerous corruption scandals. The executives of the FIFA governing body are very wealthy, while the vast majority of football fans are middling income or poor.

In 2022, the last World Cup, the BBC chose to boycott the opening ceremony at Qatar. Instead, they aired documentaries on the plight of migrant workers in that petroleum-monarchy nation, highlighting an ongoing political and socioeconomic scandal.

In an investigative piece for The Guardian, Jim Waterson wrote about the criticism of the Qatari government’s exploitation of migrant workers, its regressive attitudes towards LGBT+ people – reasons the BBC gave for its decision to ignore the opening ceremony of the quadrennial competition.

That is all well and good, although I suspect that the BBC was playing up the stereotypical ‘backward Arabs buying up assets with oil money’ card. The sinister, impulsively-driven Arab sheikh cynically using petroleum revenue to buy Western infrastructure (and white women, nudge-nudge, wink-wink) is a convenient boogeyman to frighten Anglophone audiences.

Be that as it may, there will still be a celebratory atmosphere at the games. The cheering, chanting, singing, and uplifting mood of supporting teams all contribute to an exhilarating experience. It is too early to say if the World Cup will be a flop, or if sagging ticket sales will result in financial losses.

Let’s also factor in the price shocks and fuel shortages caused by the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, with higher jet fuel prices plaguing the airline carriers. No, there is not going to be an immediate shortage; no need to catastrophise.

But travelers are more cautious about increasing airline travel costs, and growing numbers of tourists are avoiding going to the United States because of the Trump-MAGA induced anti-immigrant chaos. The US is no longer an attractive tourist destination, and tourism hubs inside the US have faced declining revenues and mass layoffs.

The drop in tourism is not just a minor blip, but a serious decline. Millions of people deliberately chose to stay away from the US. Presidential rhetoric may provide us with a chuckle, but that impact is only temporary. Being perceived as the instigator of unnecessary wars, and a major threat to the peace of other nations, has consequences.

The MAGA cult and its followers find it hard to understand that if you threaten other nations, mistreat migrants and refugees, then the foreign tourists that you desire will stay away. They will keep their money for themselves.

By pricing people out of the matches, FIFA has abandoned the very football supporters it claims to respect. Let’s get excited about the World Cup, not for FIFA, but for the players and the fans who will remember the experience for the rest of their lives.