New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has secured a rare concession from FIFA after negotiating 1,000 tickets to matches at the upcoming World Cup finals priced at $50, which will be distributed by ballot to local residents.
The 1,000 tickets will be split across games played at MetLife Stadium in neighboring New Jersey, including five group-stage fixtures, a round of 32 tie and a round of 16 game, but not the final on July 19. It is the only citywide access program of this kind that has so far been announced for the tournament, which will be hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico this June and July.
The $50 seats are the cheapest available for fans to purchase through the primary ticket market at the World Cup. Buyers will also receive free round-trip bus travel to attend.
The tickets will be apportioned via a ballot and will only be available to New York City residents, following on from Mamdani’s campaign demand during his mayoral run for locals to be given greater access by FIFA to this summer’s tournament.
In an interview with The Athletic in October, Mamdani said FIFA’s unprecedentedly high World Cup ticket prices “threaten to price out the very people that make this game so special.” He said he considered intervention by politicians to be necessary, adding that “it is the place of leaders to step up when we see profit as the only motive, to an extent where so many who used to attend these very events can now not even conceive of doing so”.
The Athletic has learned, via sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations, that Mamdani raised the issue directly with FIFA president Gianni Infantino during a meeting at City Hall in Manhattan in March — a meeting in which Mamdani, a lifelong fan of new Premier League champions Arsenal, was also introduced via FaceTime to Arsene Wenger, the former Arsenal manager and now FIFA’s chief of global development.
MetLife Stadium will host eight matches at the 2026 World Cup (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
On the face of it, Mamdani and Infantino may be deemed unlikely bedfellows, with the mayor running on an affordability platform, while Infantino has often boasted publicly of the $11 billion revenue which FIFA will drive from this summer’s World Cup — although he justifies this by saying the bulk of the money is to be redistributed across global soccer.
Here, The Athletic outlines how these $50 tickets will be allocated and how the negotiations played out between Infantino and Mamdani.
Which tickets have been secured?
The 1,000 tickets will be shared pretty evenly across the seven aforementioned games, but the bundle does not include any seats for the World Cup final on July 19. The tickets are in the upper tier of MetLife Stadium, and are the equivalent of Category 3 tickets, which are the cheapest seats, apart from a very small allocation of $60 Category 4 tickets which FIFA released after receiving a huge backlash against its initial ticket pricing.
The $50 cost, therefore, is considerably lower than the recent pricing for group matches at MetLife that FIFA set out in mid-April for Category 3 seats. For example, the game between Brazil and Morocco was priced by FIFA at $315 for a Category 3 seat, while it was $355 for Ecuador against Germany. The Category 3 seats were priced at $255 for England-Panama and France-Senegal, while it was $220 for Norway-Senegal.
The round of 32 game had Category 3 seats at $280 and the round of 16 one was at $415. Those prices, however, are only for those fortunate enough to navigate their way through FIFA’s primary ticketing portal, with the resale market often much more expensive.
As such, the $50 seats represent a vastly significant reduction.
The tickets, it should be said, will not come at a direct revenue cost to FIFA itself. This is because they have been released from the allocation purchased by the joint host committee for New York and New Jersey, but FIFA, which had initial reservations about the concept, still had to sign off on it because these allocations are not usually permitted to be resold to the general public.
While Mamdani has secured an allocation for New Yorkers, it is not the same for residents of New Jersey, where it was not requested by political leaders. The region’s host committee has, however, provided substantial financial support to help New Jersey commuters impacted by World Cup disruption during the tournament.
Mamdani campaigned for New York residents to be given greater access to the 2026 World Cup (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Who will the tickets be available to, and how can people apply?
The World Cup tickets will be available solely to New York City residents. Those who secure the tickets will be required to show evidence they live there. Any resident over the age of 15 will be permitted to join the lottery, and winners will be drawn at random.
The window to enter will open at 10am ET on Monday, May 25, closing at 5pm. Up to 50,000 people per day will be able to apply. The successful applicants will then be informed on Wednesday, June 3 and be permitted to buy up to two tickets each, which will allow a parent to take a child.
The process is also seeking to prevent the tickets from being scalped or resold. This will be achieved by making them non-transferable and they will only be given to the winners on the day of the game involved, at the site from which fans will be transported via buses to MetLife Stadium.
This contrasts with FIFA’s own approach to ticketing during the tournament. The World Cup organizer has established its own resale platform, where it takes a 15 per cent cut from both the buyer and the seller.
Mamdani’s World Cup czar Maya Handa said: “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. 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.”
How did the negotiations play out between FIFA and Mamdani?
Multiple sources familiar with the negotiations said that FIFA was initially reluctant to agree to the concept. That is despite the cost burden being swallowed by the joint host committee for New York and New Jersey, a non-profit that will recover the loss it has taken through local partnerships and sponsors, with its leadership said to be comfortable with the arrangement.
The initiative has not come at a direct cost to New York City taxpayers, other than the time and energy committed to negotiations, according to those familiar with the talks.
FIFA’s hesitation was partially due to a wariness of creating a precedent whereby local politicians or stakeholders could seek to create their own resale markets, which either undercut FIFA (in the event prices are lower than FIFA’s own) or benefit from resale in a manner in which the body’s agreements do not permit. As such, a negotiation was required to secure an exemption.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
In his mayoral campaign, Mamdani called for FIFA to abandon its dynamic pricing model for the World Cup (it has not), cap ticket resales (it has not) and set aside 15 percent of tickets for local residents at a discount (it has not).
Yet according to those who witnessed these talks play out, he was determined to get some movement from FIFA and wanted to provide at least some affordable tickets for New Yorkers.
After coming to power in January, Mamdani took a less publicly combative tone than he had taken on during his campaign. In March, the first meeting took place between Infantino and Mamdani at City Hall and the pair bonded over soccer. Mamdani recalled a story he often told to the media during his campaign, reminiscing about his trip as an 18-year-old to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and how he feared similar opportunities to bring young people into the sport could be lost under the 2026 tournament’s pricing model.
Mamdani also opened up on his love of Arsenal, which then led Infantino to make a FaceTime call to FIFA employee Wenger, whose Arsenal teams the mayor adored as a child.
In the weeks and months that followed, the negotiations continued between Mamdani’s team, led by Handa. Mamdani succeeded in developing a similar initiative on affordable pricing with local NWSL team Gotham FC in April, securing 1,000 tickets priced at $5 for the club’s match against Boston Legacy at Sports Illustrated Stadium, also in New Jersey.
There were points at which the deal with FIFA appeared in the balance, most notably when the latter was left exasperated by the region’s transit costs for World Cup ticket holders when the prices were presented last month. Not only were the NJ Transit prices $150, but the bus shuttle service laid on by the host committee came in at $80.
Arsene Wenger is now FIFA’s chief of global development (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
The bus prices came down, largely due to the persistence of host committee CEO Alex Lasry, who enlisted the support of Mamdani and New York state’s governor Kathy Hochul.
Mamdani’s office made an introduction to Highland Fleets, a company that manages some of America’s largest pools of electric school-buses. Highland was then put in touch with the governor’s office, with the state investing $6 million to create a service — largely comprised of yellow school buses — which would provide $20 round-trip rides from Manhattan to games at MetLife Stadium.
During that time, Mamdani kept his counsel, aware that the blitz of negative publicity stemming from his region may make FIFA less inclined to make an exemption for him. He did not join the chorus of voices in New York and New Jersey, such as Sherrill and New York senator Chuck Schumer, who attacked FIFA and demanded the World Cup organizer foot the bill for public transport. His comments were rare, with his office last week simply reiterating that “working-class New Yorkers should not be priced out of one of the biggest sporting events in the world while it’s happening in their own city”.
In between, Mamdani also signposted his enthusiasm for the World Cup.
He has previously announced a Soccer Streets program, by which he will turn 50 car-free blocks outside of New York City public schools into a mix of soccer mini-pitches, block parties and community events to help locals experience the World Cup on their doorsteps this summer. There will also now be fan zones across the city’s five boroughs, all of which will be free, with activations across the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, Bronx Terminal Market, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Staten Island University Hospital Community Park.
What are those involved saying about the outcome?
FIFA has declined to comment. In a release issued to The Athletic ahead of an announcement later on Thursday, Mamdani said: “A World Cup is coming to our backyard, and we want to ensure working-class New Yorkers have the opportunity to be part of it. We sat down with the host committee to make certain this tournament belongs to the people who make this city what it is. Today, 1,000 New Yorkers are going to get into those stands for $50 and a free bus ride. I’m proud that New York City is leading the way.”
Lasry, CEO of the New York-New Jersey host committee, said: “From the beginning, we pushed for a program that prioritized affordability and access for New Yorkers and worked closely together to help make that possible. The World Cup will bring the eyes of the world to our region, and it was important to all of us that the people who define New York City could experience it firsthand.”
The announcement is due to be made on Thursday morning U.S. time in the Little Senegal community which is part of the Harlem neighborhood in Manhattan.
Two of Senegal’s three World Cup group games are at MetLife but their players will need to largely depend on its diaspora within the United States for support during the tournament.
Nationals from Senegal currently face restrictions over entry to the United States owing to travel bans issued by President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump’s December proclamation suspended entry into the U.S. for nationals of Senegal, both as immigrants and non-immigrants, including in the visitor category for business and tourism — the latter of which would be required to attend the World Cup.
