Dozens of tickets for Scotland’s opening World Cup match against Haiti were being listed on third-party resale websites just over a week before kickoff, with prices swinging from below face value to more than $2,000. The listings arrived as Scotland’s campaign was closing in on its June 12 start in Boston, giving fans a sharp look at how quickly 2026 world cup ticket prices have become a moving target.
The original sale price for Scotland’s opening-match tickets in Boston was between £53 and £380, but one ticket seen on a third-party site was listed at less than £200 while other seats had been pushed far higher. The spread is part of why the resale market has become such a flashpoint for supporters trying to plan a trip that is now less than two weeks away.
Gavin Noon said the tickets had been sold in an “absolutely shambolic way” and accused Fifa of sending mixed messages to fans. He said the governing body had told people the tournament would sell out and that tickets would be so scarce they would have to pay £1,200 to attend every match, even as whole sections for “less desirable” games were being moved through secondary resale sites at less than a third of face value. Noon also said Fifa had been left with “tens of thousands” of unsold tickets.
That clash matters because the scramble is not happening in a vacuum. The Times reported that Fifa was working with resale sites to shift thousands of unsold tickets, even after it had warned fans against using such platforms. Fifa’s own resale site charges buyers and sellers 15% on resold tickets, and some Scotland opening-match tickets have already appeared there for more than $2,000. The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey launched an investigation into Fifa’s practices last week, and New Jersey attorney general Jennifer Davenport described the process as a “gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity and impossibly high prices.”
The people squeezed hardest are not just Scotland supporters chasing a seat. Fans from Haiti will be unable to attend because they have been banned from entering the United States, which leaves the opening match with a narrow and confusing path for buyers at exactly the point when demand should be settling. What remains unclear is how many tickets are still unsold overall, and which resale sites Fifa is using to move them before Scotland walks out in Boston on June 12.
