The World Cup has been overshadowed for some fans by a wave of ticketing trouble. According to CBC News, the problems have been described as one of the biggest lapses in the history of ticketing, leaving supporters caught between the companies they bought from and the tournament they hoped to attend.
At the centre of the dispute is a blame game between two big names. The resale platform StubHub points the finger at FIFA and its app, which is required to enter stadiums, while FIFA has told fans not to purchase from third parties and has referred questions back to StubHub, leaving buyers stuck in the middle.
Industry voices say the deeper problem is the practice of speculative ticketing. In these cases, sellers offer tickets they do not actually have, gambling on getting hold of them later, a practice critics argue should be illegal because it amounts to selling something that does not exist.
The pattern is not unique to football. Observers compared the situation to recent concert tours by Oasis and Olivia Rodrigo, where speculators offered so-called ghost tickets and, when the day arrived, resale websites failed to deliver, leaving fans without the seats they had paid for.
For some, the cost has been steep. In Vancouver, Mark Gallagher says he is still fighting StubHub over an 11,000 dollar refund. He says he is speaking out in the hope of doing more than just recouping his money, describing the emotional stress and anxiety the ordeal has caused as immeasurable.
The companies and critics are now pulling in different directions. StubHub says it is investigating and will honour its money-back guarantee, while some are calling for speculative ticketing to be banned outright, arguing that selling tickets a person does not hold should not be allowed in the first place.