FIFA 'regrets' giving away free World Cup tickets and cancels them ahead of tournament
As many as 60 attendees of this summer's FIFA World Cup have had their free tickets revoked.
Now just six days away from kicking off - co-host nation Mexico take on South Africa in the first game - the iconic tournament will be contested by a whopping 48 teams instead of the usual 32.
France, Spain, England, Argentina and Portugal are the favourites to lift the trophy, which was won by Lionel Messi's country four years ago.
But as rafts of footy lovers from across the world get their passports ready, an unlucky few have had their bubbles burst by FIFA.
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That's because they were mistakenly given freebies by the organisation when they attempted to purchase tickets online last month.
Per The Mirror, an email sent out to them this week read: "Dear football fan, in preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2026, we continuously monitor our ticketing systems to ensure accuracy and provide a seamless purchasing experience for all fans.
"As part of these efforts, we identified and resolved an issue with ticket pricing that affected a small number of tickets sold on FIFA.com/tickets on 21 May 2026. This issue caused certain tickets to be displayed with inaccurate prices at checkout and in the completed transaction records."
The slightly soul-destroying email continued: "You have been identified as a customer who purchased a ticket affected by this pricing inaccuracy. In accordance with the Terms of Sale for the General Public, all ticket orders that included tickets with inaccurate prices have been cancelled. You will receive a full refund for all payments made in connection with these ticket orders.
"To ensure you do not miss the opportunity to attend the FIFA World Cup 2026, we have reserved the same ticket(s) for you to purchase at the correct price.
"This ticket(s) will be available for purchase through your FIFA ticketing account for 7 days from the date of this message. If the purchase is not completed within this period, the reserved ticket(s) will be removed from your account."
A follow-up statement published by FIFA shared its 'regret' over messing these 'approximately 60' buyers around, while their full-priced tickets remain reserved for them.
This comes after US President Donald Trump declared that even he wouldn't pay the astronomical asking price for a World Cup ticket.
In other World Cup news, it was announced just this week that fans wouldn't be able to take refillable plastic bottles into any of the stadiums.
Considering the thermal intensity of the three host countries, that is nothing short of shambolic and quite clearly a money-grabbing tactic - according to fans, of course.
Dan Seddon