Want to watch Mexico against South Africa in the opening match of the 2026 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca? Want to sit beside your partner, friend or offspring? That will be a snip at R47,218 a ticket. Each. Those tickets are in the nosebleed seats.
That was the price on Thursday morning on viagogo.co.za. There are not many tickets left for the match. Just 20 in the R83,839 range, which are also in the top level of the stadium, 16 at R74,524, 20 at R149,048, two at R205,155 and four each in the eye-watering R458,549 and R501,538 range. That’s per ticket. ’Kin’ hell.
Need a roof over your head when you go to watch? Good luck with that. Hotel prices will also be through the roof. This week The Athletic analysed hotel prices and discovered the Le Meridien Mexico City Reforma hotel in Mexico City “costs $157 per night in late May, yet on June 10 and 11, around the World Cup opener between Mexico and South Africa, is listed at $3,882 … a 2,373% increase”. The cheapest hotel is the budget-sounding City Express Junior by Marriott Toluca Zona Industrial at $660, up from $64. ’Kin’ hell.
The Athletic reported hotel prices in the US, Canada and Mexico have seen “an average increase of more than 300% around opening matches in the 16 host cities”. Some who bought early tickets and upped their Airbnb game could just about afford to watch a World Cup game, but these ticket and hotel prices suggest that Fifa is hardly the “official happiness provider for humanity for over 100 years”, as Fifa president Gianni Infantino proclaimed at the draw last week.
“This will be unique. This will be stellar,” said Infantino at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. If by stellar he means prices that are out of this world, Infantino isn’t wrong. All this is assuming you get a visa to get into the US in the first place.
Infantino had another bonding moment with US President Donald Trump at the draw, giving him a bigly Temu peace trophy to make up for the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump felt was his because he had stopped all these wars and conflicts that are still warring and conflicting. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Venezuelan activist María Corina Machado, who arrived in Oslo on Thursday after a year in hiding after she had told her country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, to step down because he had been accused of stealing last year’s elections.
She escaped her country by boat and snuck into Oslo a day after her daughter accepted the award on her behalf. Trump has been trying to force Maduro out of power. Venezuela vice-president Delcy Rodríguez said the ceremony was a “total failure” and was “stained with blood”. The US seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, ramping up tensions between the two countries. It was, said Trump “a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually”. Feel the peace, pilgrims.
It will be a very different, very strange football World Cup. Prices are extreme, the US administration and Infantino’s toadying are without boundaries and subplots abound. Egypt and Iran have asked Fifa to stop the LGBTQ+ Pride celebration that will happen at the same time as their group stage match in Seattle. The June 26 game “has been designated by local organisers as a ‘Pride Match’ to coincide with Seattle’s Pride weekend”, reported agencies. Homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran and is prosecuted in Egypt. The local organising committee, Seattle Fifa World Cup 26, has demurred and said Pride will go ahead.
Allies and enemies will be wary and wear false smiles when they meet. Trump has called European leaders “weak” and their countries “decaying”. Russia has spoken of staging a parallel World Cup. Fifa’s ethics committee has received a complaint about “repeated breaches” of article 15 of its code of ethics that refers to “political neutrality” by Infantino. Happiness? Money? Peace? It’s all kicking off for the 2026 World Cup and it’s seven months until Mexico kick off against South Africa. ’Kin’ hell.
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