As of Thursday evening, more than 3,500 tickets were listed on FIFA’s primary portal and over 6,500 were on its resale platform for the June 12 match between the United States and Paraguay at SoFi Stadium — leaving the U.S. opener with more than 10,000 tickets available roughly two weeks before the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins.
That scarcity of buyers is why searches for FIFA World Cup tickets and prices have spiked: the U.S. opener is scheduled to be one of the tournament’s most watched games, and FIFA has been asking steep sums for the privilege — Category 1 seats priced at $2,735, Category 2 at $1,940 and Category 3 at $1,120 since sales began last October.
The gap between those price points and actual purchases is evident in internal numbers circulated to local organizers. An April 10 document listed 40,934 tickets purchased for the United States match; the same document showed 50,661 tickets purchased for Iran–New Zealand at the same venue three days later. FIFA also added thousands of U.S.–Paraguay tickets to its portal on May 7, and it has released held-back tickets in batches throughout April and May.
All of those figures — primary portal availability, resale listings and the April 10 purchase totals — combine to make a simple fact: a high-profile game in a stadium that will hold around 69,650 people for World Cup matches is not close to sold out yet. On the resale market many listings priced below FIFA’s primary tickets have appeared, with some offers dropping to less than half of FIFA’s prices after fees and taxes, underscoring softer-than-expected consumer demand for this particular match.
That makes the U.S.–Paraguay ticket story harder to read than the clean narrative FIFA and local organizers pitched. The match was billed as one of the tournament’s most attractive days, yet thousands of seats remain unsold and a large proportion of those available are appearing on secondary markets at a discount. FIFA does not publicly disclose overall sales or the inventory it keeps back; the organization has held back tickets throughout the sales process and released them in batches, a practice that has punctuated the market’s unpredictability.
A FIFA spokesperson pushed back on drawing firm conclusions from partial data, saying it would be misleading and irresponsible to publish sales figures as fact. That defense matters — FIFA controls large portions of inventory and timing, and those choices shape prices, perception and whether a venue looks full on match day.
The immediate consequence is practical: fans still shopping for a June 12 ticket face high posted prices on FIFA’s primary platform, a robust resale market with cheaper options, and uncertainty about whether FIFA will release more tickets before kickoff. For organizers and broadcasters the open question is whether the match will reach the kind of sellout and atmosphere expected when schedules were announced.
What comes next is the clearest unresolved point: will FIFA release additional inventory, and will that inventory find buyers quickly enough to fill SoFi? Watching the portal for sudden batches of tickets and monitoring resale prices in the final days before kickoff will be the best indicators. FilmoGaz has chronicled related preparations — from team bases to screening plans — including reporting on Iran’s arrangements and on theater screenings — and will track any fresh ticket releases and price moves leading into June 12.
