04/03/2026
Was that intriguing enough???
Supporters who logged on early Wednesday morning hoping to snap up tickets for games instead found themselves stuck for more than an hour in a line that led nowhere.
By the time the error was fixed, many said it was already too late.
Instead of reaching the general sales portal, users were mistakenly funneled into a restricted section reserved for official national-team supporter groups - known as Participating Member Associations (PMAs) - which requires special access codes.
Ordinary fans without the code had to rejoin the main queue, way behind where they would have been.
‘FIFA have blood on their hands for sending majority of fans like myself to the wrong queue,’ one fan wrote on X. ‘Ruining the dreams of many. Stealing money for profit!’
Others said they were blindsided by requests for codes they had never been told they needed. ‘They never mention this - there is no code!’ another fumed. Many accused the organization of being ‘a scam’. They said they were dumped into the PMA queue after waiting over an hour in what appeared to be the correct last-minute sales queue.
Even those in the correct place had problems. Fans said the virtual queue itself appeared to behave erratically, with some claiming their place actually moved backwards after waiting for more than an hour.
‘They are definitely moving back… I was more than halfway and now I’m a quarter of the way,’ one wrote.
And those who managed to get through reported fresh problems, including blank screens, crashes and pages that failed to load any tickets at all. Beyond the technical mishap, the broader outrage stems from what fans see as FIFA prioritizing profit over supporters, with sky-high ticket prices fueling the perception that the organization has been overlooking fans in pursuit of revenue.
FIFA confirmed in mid-2025 that the 2026 World Cup would use a dynamic pricing model, meaning ticket costs can surge based on supply and demand.
