The 2026 FIFA World Cup Is Losing The Fans That Made It Great

The greatest show on Earth was supposed to be the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Forty-eight teams. Three host nations. A bigger, bolder, "historic" tournament that Gianni Infantino promised would smash every record football had ever seen. Instead, barely a week into the action, football fans across the globe are united on one thing: this World Cup feels less like a celebration of the sport and more like a corporate cash grab wearing a jersey. And the funny part? Fans keep comparing it to Qatar 2022 — the tournament everyone loved to criticise before it even started — and somehow, Qatar is coming out on top. THE TICKET PRICE SCANDAL THAT WON'T DIE It started months before a ball was even kicked. Fan groups Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and Euroconsumers filed a formal complaint with the European Commission, accusing FIFA of abusing a monopoly position to charge what they called "extortionate" and "astronomical" prices for World Cup tickets. The numbers back up the anger. Some final tickets have been reported as high as $8,680, while FSE pointed out that 2026 tickets were running nearly five times more expensive than what fans paid for Qatar 2022. FIFA's response? A limited release of $60 tickets — but fan groups say most of those discounted seats vanished before general sale even opened, branding it a "bait and switch." FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended the pricing, pointing to a staggering 150 million ticket requests as proof of demand, and insisting all revenue gets "reinvested" into growing the game worldwide. For a tournament expected to generate FIFA's highest-ever revenue figures, fans aren't buying the charity angle. Compare that to Qatar 2022, where ticket prices — while not cheap — never sparked an official complaint to a continental regulator. Qatar may have been criticised for many things, but pricing fans out entirely wasn't one of FIFA's biggest 2026 headaches until now. THE HYDRATION BREAK THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR FIFA introduced mandatory three-minute "hydration breaks" in each half, officially to protect players from extreme heat across the US host cities. Unofficially, fans and coaches see it as something else entirely: an advertising slot, and it truly is. Norway boss Ståle Solbakken didn't hold back, calling the breaks "unnecessary" outside genuinely hot conditions and pointing out the contradiction at the heart of FIFA's own rule changes — the governing body wants to speed up the game with stricter added-time rules, yet simultaneously slows it down with scripted pauses built for commercial breaks. Fox Sports, holding US English-language rights, has been criticised for running long commercial breaks that delay restarts, while Telemundo has scored fan goodwill by refusing to air ads during the pauses. The optics are damning: a "player welfare" initiative that conveniently doubles as primetime ad inventory. Qatar 2022 had cooling breaks too, but they never became a symbol of FIFA's commercial obsession the way 2026's version has. A HALFTIME SHOW NOBODY IN FOOTBALL WANTED Perhaps the most divisive decision of all: FIFA confirmed the World Cup final will have its first-ever halftime show, Super Bowl-style, featuring Coldplay's Chris Martin curating a lineup reportedly including Shakira, Madonna, and BTS. The backlash was instant and brutal. Oasis legend and Manchester City fan Noel Gallagher summed up the mood for millions of traditionalists: football has "been functioning perfectly for hundreds of years," and now there's going to be a halftime show. Social media erupted with comparisons to the Super Bowl, with fans accusing FIFA of Americanizing the sport's biggest night. It's not just romantic nostalgia at stake either. FIFA's own senior pitch manager has reportedly raised concerns about the toll that staging a full concert on the MetLife Stadium turf will take on playing surface quality ahead of the final itself — the same surface 22 players will need to be in peak condition on for the most important match of their careers. Qatar never tried to turn its World Cup final into a music festival. Whatever else it got wrong, it kept the football the main event.

THE BORDER PROBLEM FIFA CAN'T SOLVE If ticket prices and halftime shows feel like football's commercial soul slipping away, this next issue cuts even deeper: some of the very people the tournament is supposed to celebrate can't even get through the door. Since the tournament kicked off on June 11, reports have piled up of players, coaches, and match officials being detained, questioned, or denied entry into the United States entirely. Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan — set to become the first Somali official ever to work a World Cup — was denied entry by US Customs and Border Protection over "vetting concerns," despite having already cleared FIFA's own accreditation process. Iraq's star striker Aymen Hussein and the national team's photographer were detained for seven hours at Chicago's O'Hare Airport; Hussein was eventually let through, but the photographer was not. Iran's situation has been the most extreme. After visa disputes involving the team's federation officials and support staff, several of whom were denied entry, the Iranian squad has had to base itself in Mexico for the entire tournament, crossing the border only for matchdays before returning. It's a logistical nightmare no team should face at a World Cup. The root cause traces back to sweeping US travel restrictions affecting nationals from dozens of countries, several of which have players competing in this tournament — including Iran, Haiti, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal. FIFA insisted athletes, coaches, and "necessary support staff" would be covered by exemptions. In practice, who counts as "necessary support" has been decided inconsistently, leaving federations guessing which staff members will be allowed to travel until the last minute. Even Iran's own football federation president was initially denied a visa to attend the World Cup draw in Washington, D.C. — only reversed after a boycott threat forced FIFA's hand. It isn't just teams. Journalists covering the tournament have also been swept up. Human rights organisations and press freedom groups have documented cases of reporters facing visa denials and detention risks while covering World Cup host cities, with over 120 immigrant rights groups issuing a joint warning that players, fans, and journalists alike could face serious rights violations during the tournament. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has tried to stay above the fray, insisting his organisation's officials are "not kings of the world" and cannot override sovereign immigration decisions. But that defence rings hollow for fans watching referees and footballers turned away at the same airports their tournament is meant to celebrate. Here's where the Qatar comparison gets uncomfortable for FIFA all over again. Qatar 2022 had its own access controversies — most notably around LGBTQ+ symbols, with journalists and fans briefly stopped at stadium gates over rainbow shirts and hats. But those were isolated security incidents resolved within the same day. Nobody was deported. No team had to relocate to a neighbouring country just to compete. Whatever criticism Qatar absorbed over freedom of expression, it never produced a situation where a World Cup squad couldn't actually live in the country hosting their own matches. For a tournament sold on the promise of "non-discriminatory entry" for every qualified nation, 2026 is delivering something closer to a lottery — and the losers aren't abstract statistics. They're real referees, real strikers, real photographers, locked out of the biggest stage in world football. THE CLIMATE COST FIFA DOESN'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT Expanding to 48 teams across three countries means more matches, more travel, and dramatically more emissions. A report by Scientists for Global Responsibility estimated the tournament's carbon footprint could be almost double the average of the last four World Cups combined — comparable to driving 6.5 million cars for a full year. In May, dozens of players signed a letter through the New Weather Institute demanding that FIFA strengthen heat protocols and reduce the tournament's climate impact. For a governing body that markets itself as a custodian of "the world's game," the sustainability numbers tell an uncomfortable story. SO WHY DOES QATAR SUDDENLY LOOK GOOD? Qatar 2022 wasn't perfect. It faced its own storm of criticism — human rights concerns, and complaints about substandard fan accommodation, including reports of broken air conditioning and overpriced shipping-container lodging. But on football logistics, Qatar delivered something fans are desperately missing in 2026: compactness, efficiency, and a tournament that felt built around the game itself. Every stadium was within an hour of the others. There was no halftime concert competing with the football for attention. Ticket pricing, while criticised, never triggered formal regulatory complaints across an entire continent. And crucially, every qualified nation that made it to Qatar actually got to play with their full squad and staff present. Qatar's sin was perception and politics. FIFA's 2026 problem is something fans find harder to forgive: it feels like football has become secondary to the business — and the politics — of football. The 2026 World Cup already has a credibility problem. Ticket prices have angered fan groups enough to involve EU regulators. Commercial breaks dressed up as player welfare are irritating coaches and players alike. A pop concert is overshadowing preparations for the final itself. Referees, players, and journalists are being turned away at the border of the tournament's host nation. And the tournament's environmental footprint is drawing scrutiny from the very players FIFA claims to protect. Infantino promised history. What football fans are increasingly saying he's delivered is a Super Bowl wearing shin pads — and Qatar, ironically, is starting to look like the last World Cup that actually put football first.