With the expanded 2026 World Cup finals hosted by the three North American countries, the passion is no longer enough. Exorbitant ticket prices, digital codes, and dynamic pricing have turned fandom into a commodity.

Football was once “the king of the poor,” but today it has become the preserve of those with money, while ordinary fans are forced to merely watch from afar.

Since FIFA launched ticket sales for the World Cup, millions have discovered that its famous slogan, “Football for All,” is nothing more than an empty marketing phrase. The cheapest ticket for the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey exceeded $2,000, while seats close to the pitch cost more than $4,000. The tickets with a symbolic price ($60) were just faint green dots on a digital map that disappeared in seconds.

The frustration, however, was not only in the numbers, but in the new mechanism adopted by FIFA: no published price lists, but rather a kind of “digital lottery” that determines who is eligible to buy, and a dynamic market where prices change every minute according to demand, just like in the stock market. Over time, the public discovered that the popular seats had disappeared and that prices had risen by more than 40% on the first day alone.

This is not football as we know it, but a complete financial experience, where access to the stands has become an investment process. British journalist Brian Armin Graham described the new system as “a laboratory for greed in the age of late capitalism,” adding that “FIFA has succeeded in turning emotions themselves into a tradable commodity, and the fear of loss has become a source of profit.”

The innovation didn’t stop at pricing. With the failure of FIFA's digital token project launched in 2022, the idea was recycled under the name “right to buy,” meaning that fans purchase a digital token that later gives them the ability to buy a real ticket if their team qualifies. These tokens sold for up to $1,000 each, before their value collapsed when it became clear that their owners could only buy the most expensive seats.

Eric Cantona, one of the most prominent critics of the game's monopoly, believes that “when money controls everything, the spirit that made football the greatest popular art form dies.” Today, his words are a testament in an era where the game is managed by artificial intelligence software and algorithms.

FIFA officials have defended the new system as “an update in line with US market standards,” but these standards have transformed fans from supporters of their national teams into consumers subject to the logic of supply and demand. Even the resale market, which used to be limited to the original price, is now open-ended, with tickets being resold on the official platform itself for tens of times their value, with FIFA taking a double commission from the buyer.

Ronan Ivan, executive director of the European Supporters' Association, pointed out that the situation has become “the privatization of joy,” adding that “the World Cup, which was a symbol of openness, has turned into a closed club for the wealthy.”

But amid this bleak scene, real football is thriving elsewhere: in the squares of Cairo and the alleys of Tunis, Casablanca, and Algiers, where people are celebrating the qualification of four Arab-African teams for the 2026 World Cup with collective joy that cannot be bought or sold. Liverpool star Mohamed Salah summed it up when he said:“Playing for your country is not measured by a contract or a salary, but by the eyes of the people waiting for you in the streets.”

These teams represent the pure essence of what football once was: genuine public passion that defies all forms of commercialization. The stands, ablaze with songs and chants, do not need “pricing dynamics,” but rather sincerity of emotion.

Diego Maradona perhaps said it most clearly before his passing: “Football is the only pure thing left for the poor.”

Today, however, FIFA is trying to turn this purity into a financial asset that trades like any other stock on the stock market. Despite all attempts at privatization, the game will remain the property of those who love it.