The beautiful game has a nasty habit of producing ugly numbers. Today’s headline from Zurich should make any fiscal conservative wince: Fifa, the global football regulator, is under investigation over World Cup ticket prices. UK fans, those perennial consumers of overpriced pies and inflated transfer fees, are demanding transparency.
And who can blame them? When a single ticket to the final can cost more than a month’s rent in Barnsley, the market has clearly lost its head. I have spent twenty years watching the City of London price assets.
From gilts to equities, I have seen what happens when a seller holds all the cards. You get a monopoly rent; a tax on enthusiasm. And that is exactly what Fifa has been levying on the world’s most loyal supporters.
The investigation, reportedly launched by consumer watchdogs, will examine whether Fifa’s pricing practices breach fair trading laws. The governing body has long operated as a state within a state, immune to normal market forces. But this time, the angry roar from the stands might just shake the boardroom.
For UK fans, the issue is personal. They have seen their national team reach semi-finals, only to be priced out of attending. One supporter group calculated that a family of four attending the 2026 tournament in North America would face costs exceeding £10,000.
That is not a sporting event. That is capital flight from the household balance sheet. The economic logic is straightforward: when demand is inelastic (fans will pay almost anything to see their heroes) and supply is fixed (stadiums hold only so many), the price will rise to whatever the market can bear.
Fifa, acting as a rational monopolist, has extracted maximum surplus. But this is where central planning and market efficiency collide. If Fifa were a private company, shareholders would applaud.
But it is a non-profit? A cartel? The confusion is deliberate.
The investigation will force transparency. We may finally see how much of that ticket revenue goes to player wages, how much to lavish 'development' projects in Qatar, and how much to simply inflate the egos of blazers in Zurich. My bet is that the accounts will reveal a familiar pattern: costs are socialised, profits are privatised.
UK fans are right to demand clarity. They have been paying a premium for decades, from World Cup tickets to Premier League subscriptions. The difference now is that the Bank of England cannot print more loyalty.
If the investigation finds Fifa in breach, expect ticket prices to correct sharply. But do not hold your breath. Football’s governing body has a long history of handling scrutiny like a dodgy derivative: it passes the risk to the end user.
In this case, the end user is the fan. And the fan, for now, is still paying the price.
