After facing criticism over the FIFA World Cup 2026 ticket prices, with premium seats for the final reaching around $9,000, the International Federation of Association Football has now launched a more affordable ticket phase for the 2026 World Cup Intercontinental Play-Off Tournament.
The World Cup Play-Off Tournament matches in Mexico to be held in late March will determine the final two vacant spots for the 48-team summer tournament. Tickets for these matches went on sale on Tuesday.
And they did so at a much more affordable rate (less than $17 American dollars) than it would cost to attend a proper World Cup match this summer in Mexico, Canada or the United States.
Jamaica will play New Caledonia March 26 in Guadalajara, and Bolivia will face Suriname the same day in Monterrey. The winners of those two matches will face Congo and Iraq, respectively, on March 31, with the winners of those matches clinching World Cup spots.
World Cup prices are as exciting as the event itself! ⚽️🏟️🏆 pic.twitter.com/6W2fyvlMvq
— Richard Starson 🇺🇸🚀🇺🇸 (@DrStarson) March 4, 2026
Tickets for the March 26 matches are being sold for 200 Mexican pesos (approximately $11.30) and March 31 tickets are priced at 300 pesos ($16.95).
It’s a far cry from the upwards of $1,000 price tag attached to World Cup match tickets being sold on FIFA’s official ticket resale website.
In total, there will be 7 million seats to be filled across all 104 matches from June 11 through July 19. FIFA announced in January that it received over 500 million ticket requests for this year’s World Cup.
