MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Tickets for most of the World Cup group games remain on general sale with just over a month to go until the tournament kicks off on June 11.
But prices are exorbitantly high, topping out at $4,105 for the United States' opening game against Paraguay in Los Angeles, and many costing around $2,000.
Tickets are still available on FIFA's official website through its “last-minute sales” section after batches had been released through various phases since September.
The cheapest tickets currently are $380 for seven different games, including World Cup debutant Curacao vs. Ivory Coast in Philadelphia.
Prices vary dependent on the category of ticket, with Front Category 1 the most expensive and Category 4 the cheapest. Yet a Category 3 ticket for USA vs. Paraguay is listed at $1,120 compared to a Category 2 ticket for Austria vs Jordan, which is $380.
Prices are also subject to change as FIFA adopts dynamic pricing for the first time at the World Cup.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in January the demand for tickets for this year's tournament in the U.S., Canada and Mexico was the equivalent of “1,000 years of World Cups at once”, and all 104 matches would be sold out.
While only a handful of tickets remain for some games, fans willing and able to pay can still watch even the biggest nations such as defending champion Argentina, Brazil, Spain, France and England.
Tickets for Lionel Messi's Argentina range from $2,475-$2,925. For Brazil it is $2,280-$2,310.
FIFA has been accused by fans of a “monumental betrayal” on ticket costs, but soccer's governing body has repeatedly defended its pricing strategy.
Fans have been further angered by the addition of more expensive categories as the tournament approaches. Many of the tickets still on general sale are for the more expensive categories.
Tickets are also available via resale platforms including FIFA's own marketplace and last month four seats for the World Cup final were listed at just under $2.3 million each. FIFA does not resell tickets or set prices on the platform, but can cash in for a second time by taking a 30% cut from any sale.
Austria vs. Jordan, New Zealand vs. Egypt, Jordan vs. Algeria, Cape Verde vs. Saudi Arabia, Algeria vs. Austria, Congo DR vs. Uzbekistan and Curacao vs. Ivory Coast are all currently available for $380.
There are also a number of games with prices ranging from $400-$455.
The USA's opener against Paraguay on June 12 is the most expensive for the group games. While a number of tickets remain on general sale, the cheapest are $1,120 for Category 3.
Argentina vs. Austria ($2,925), Ecuador vs. Germany ($2,550), Uruguay vs. Spain ($2,520) and England vs. Croatia ($2,505) are also among the costliest.
A total of 17 group-stage games are sold out according to FIFA's website, including the tournament opener between Mexico and South Africa in Mexico City on June 11.
Seven games staged in Mexico are sold out, including the co-host's two other matches against South Korea in Guadalajara and Czech Republic in Mexico City.
Turkey vs. USA in Los Angeles, Brazil vs. Morocco in New York/New Jersey and Scotland vs. Brazil in Miami are among other games sold out.
No tickets for the final are on general sale, but there is still the chance to book seats for semifinals if you have around $10,000 going spare.
A Front Category 1 ticket for the Atlanta semifinal is listed at $9,660. It's even more for the Dallas semifinal, with an equivalent ticket priced at $11,130.
James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FIFA President Gianni Infantino addresses the 76th FIFA Congress in Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)
Georg Baselitz, an acclaimed German artist prominent in the Neo-Expressionalist movement who had a penchant for provocation and was known for painting images upside down, has died. He was 88.
The Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, which represented Baselitz, said the artist died on Thursday, citing his family. It said he died “peacefully,” but did not give a cause of death.
Born Hans-Georg Kern, Baselitz took his artistic name from the village of Deutschbaselitz in the eastern Saxony region, where he was born on Jan. 23, 1938, in Nazi-ruled Germany before the outbreak of World War II. After growing up in the ruins of the war, he left the then-East Germany in 1957 at a time of rising political pressure, and emigrated to the West.
“I was born into a destroyed order, into a destroyed landscape, into a destroyed people, into a destroyed society,” he told German news agency dpa before his 85th birthday.
The gallery called him “a titan of contemporary painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking" and “one of the most important artists of our time," who influenced fellow artists and the international art world.
His first exhibition in 1963 reportedly caused a stir, with a vice squad identifying pornography in at least two of his paintings, and confiscating them.
He was often described as an “artist of rage,” and had a motto of "contradiction," according to dpa.
His works hang in some of the world's top galleries and have fetched millions at auction. In 2017, German police announced they had recovered 15 stolen paintings and drawings by Baselitz worth around 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million).
Baselitz recalled that some of his earliest recognition came in the 1960s through his series of golden-colored “Hero” paintings, based on fictional characters from Russian civil war novels. The works depicted broken figures staggering toward the viewer in ragged uniforms — in distorted sizes, giant hands and small heads. His battle-weary hero, “Der Hirte (The Shepherd)” from 1966 won international acclaim.
In 1969, Baselitz created “Der Wald auf dem Kopf,” (The Forest on its Head), his first “inverted” painting — featuring trees upside down, a theme that would become one of his trademarks.
“Georg Baselitz did not just turn his paintings upside down; he also turned our thinking routines upside down,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “Having experienced the destruction and suffering of the Second World War as a child, the collapse of all order forced him to question everything around him.”
Baselitz mused about his long career in a recent video, commenting that “typical paining has never appealed to me.”
“I actually wanted to be more of a black-and-white painter, and above all, I didn’t want to work spatially, perspectively, with shadows and light and such things that arise with the imitation of nature," he said while seated in a wheelchair in a paint-smudged jacket.
“I must say that throughout my life, I was not aware that I was a painter of color, even though I am constantly told that I have such wonderful colors,” Baselitz said.
Baselitz said he sought to “construct my connection to the world, to myself and to my wife,” using the most “simple and ordinary" means possible. He spoke in a video from the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice, which is hosting an exhibition of Baselitz's “Golden Heroes” works from May 6 to Sept. 27.
A “Naked Masters” exhibit at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023 spanned his half-century career and dealt with controversial themes of nudity — notably of the painter and his wife, Elke — displayed alongside oil paintings by old masters also evoking nudity.
He is survived by his wife and sons, Daniel Blau and Anton Kern, the gallery said.
FILE - German artist Georg Baselitz talks with journalists during the press preview of the exhibition 'Georg Baselitz' in the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany, on April 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File)
