One week away from the first Club World Cup match between Leo Messi’s Inter Miami and Egyptian giant Al Ahly, there remains tens of thousands of tickets available for virtually every match. That includes the six matches being played in Seattle.
Over the past couple of weeks, FIFA has responded to the slow sales by lowering the price of tickets for many matches — some games now have a get-in price of less than $25 — but they've started to take even more drastic actions.
For the Seattle Sounders’ opener against Botafogo on June 15, for instance, FIFA has made the decision to close the 300 sections on the west side (opposite of the camera) of the stadium, according to emails from the club’s ticketing office. Notably, the Sounders are not directly handling ticket sales. About two weeks ago, the Sounders had begun offering discounted tickets and asking fans who bought through TicketMaster to fill out a form. There’s been no official communication from the Sounders since.
Now, fans who had originally bought tickets in those impacted sections have also been moved to lower sections, albeit without consultation or permission. Ticket buyers appear to have only been informed of the change once they logged into their TicketMaster accounts, with no explanation for the change from FIFA.
In addition to moving some fans, others who bought through the “Club Fan” program run directly by FIFA have been issued partial refunds for the Botafogo match. When tickets were first released for that game, prices started at around $100. They are now available for less than $60 with premium midfield seats less than $200.
Although, there still appear to be plenty of tickets available for the Sounders’ matches against Atletico Madrid (June 19) and Paris Saint-Germain (June 24), there have not been nearly as drastic of measures taken on those at this point.
