With just two months to go before the FIFA World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada, FIFA is still trying to sell tickets. But a new report suggests that the soccer governing body is increasingly using "misleading" tactics to scam them out of their money.
According to soccer reporter Henry Bushnell of The Athletic, FIFA is being accused of a slew of deceptive practices through their ticket allocation processes. Some of these alleged deceptions range from altered categories to misleading seat maps. Bushnell said that at least one fan called the practices an outright scam.
ESPN's Kevin Clark referred to the story as a "generational" sports scam being perpetrated by FIFA.
"This story is unbelievable. FIFA changed the ticket maps to make everyone's seats worse months after tickets were purchased with no recourse. I've seen some sports scams in my day but no one is doing it like FIFA. Generational. I'll probably just check it out on TV," Clark wrote on X.
FIFA Corruption
For decades, fans have cynically joked that FIFA and corruption go together like peanut butter and jelly. For some fans that have been studying FIFA's business practices, this story was something they'd seen coming before:
"I don’t think a lot of American sports fans understand just how deeply corrupt FIFA is. Makes the worst controversy in the NBA look like nothing, compared to how FIFA operates," one user remarked on X.
"I had a sports management college class. We spent a lot of time looking at what the IOC and FIFA playbooks for getting what they want. It was my first 'ewww' moment seeing how the sausage gets made in sports," wrote another.
"FIFA and the IOC are the Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain of sports scams. They push each other to become even more corrupt and become the worst versions of themselves," a third remarked.
"This is the same (expletive) they pull in the champions league final too."
YUKI IWAMURA/Getty Images
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the World Cup leadup is that there is absolutely no hype around it being generated in the United States. The tournament is two months away and there is virtually no advertising, mainstream sports network discussions or other media conversations being had on the tournament other than the occasional griping over the USMNT struggling in friendlies.
For a tournament being touted as the biggest of all-time, it feels surprisingly irrelevant with just two months until first kickoff.
