Key Points
- Australians heading to this year's World Cup have told SBS News their trips will cost tens of thousands of dollars.
- Contributing to the high costs are soaring ticket, accomodation and flight prices.
This year's FIFA World Cup is shaping up to be the most expensive in the tournament's history, with Australian fans expecting to fork out tens of thousands of dollars for the "once in a lifetime" trip.
The soaring cost is being driven by FIFA's controversial dynamic pricing model, higher accommodation and transport costs, and expensive long-haul flights to North America amid a spike in oil prices due to the war in the Middle East.
Among the thousands of Australian fans heading to the United States, Canada and Mexico for the tournament is Gold Coast football fan Dany Girgis, who estimates his trip will cost between $20,000 and $25,000.
Despite the expense, he said attending was non-negotiable.
"It's the pinnacle of sport in my opinion," he told SBS News.
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"It's something that I'm very passionate about. I work super hard outside of these trips, so I felt it was expensive, but it's worth it for the experience."
His 10-week itinerary includes travelling to Florida, where the Socceroos are training, attending all three group-stage matches and holding conditional tickets for the knockout rounds should Australia progress.
The tournament will be his third World Cup — he also went to Brazil in 2014 and Qatar in 2022 — with the camaraderie among Australian supporters remaining one of the highlights.
"Australian supporters are a very good bunch," he said.
"They get along with everyone. They're loud, so it's fun."
Girgis secured his tickets through FIFA's ballot system, which uses a lottery to allocate tickets when demand exceeds supply.
Dynamic pricing has also been introduced for this year's tournament, meaning ticket prices fluctuate in real time based on supply and demand rather than being fixed.
- All the FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on our World Cup page
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It meant Australia's group-stage match against the USA was the most expensive ticket for Girgis, costing about $700.
Fans who missed out can secure tickets through FIFA's official resale platform or third-party sites, but they can expect to pay a hefty price.
At previous tournaments, resale prices were capped at face value, but FIFA has moved into the secondary market itself and takes a 30 per cent cut from each ticket sold.
When checked by SBS News on Monday, the cheapest category 3 tickets — the seats furthest from the pitch — for the Australia-US match were listed at about $1,300 on FIFA's official resale platform, while the most expensive were an eye-watering $32,000.
FIFA has come under fire over its pricing model, but president Gianni Infantino has defended it, arguing it reflects the US market.
"You cannot go to watch in the US a college game, not even speaking about a top professional game of a certain level, for less than $300," he said last month, a claim disputed by several media outlets.
"And this is the World Cup."
Infantino also said demand was far higher for this year's expanded 48-team tournament, with about 500 million ticket requests compared with fewer than 50 million combined for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which featured 32 teams.
However, even US President Donald Trump has criticised ticket prices, telling the New York Post he would not pay a four-figure sum to attend the USA's matches.
Mark Underwood is travelling from Sydney to see the Socceroos group games against Türkiye in Vancouver and Paraguay in Santa Clara, California.
He secured category 1 tickets, which are the highest-priced premium seats, through the ticket ballot and cost about $1,300 in total for both games.
"It would be my number one sporting bucket list item that's been sitting there for 20 years, since we qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany," he said.
While cost did not play a factor in his decision to go, Underwood said he was concerned that many fans were being priced out.
"I do believe sport is becoming increasingly the sort of reserve of the upper-middle class and the wealthy," he said.
Last week, the attorney generals of New York and New Jersey announced they had requested information from FIFA about how it priced tickets and selected seats for fans for the eight games, including the final, being held in New Jersey.
The investigation comes amid allegations that some ticket-buyers had been misled about the location of the seats they bought.
While the high price may deter some fans, for others such as Stephen Podgórski, from regional Victoria, attending a World Cup had always been a dream.
"It's something I've been looking forward to and wanted to do for a long time," he said.
Podgórski, who is attending all three Socceroos group matches, balanced university studies with two jobs, working six days a week to fund the journey.
He expects to spend about $12,500.
"I couldn't miss it, so I put the funds together, and now I'm there," he said.
"It should become a once-in-a-lifetime trip."
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