Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an investigation into FIFA over the way tickets for the 2026 World Cup have been sold. At the center of the inquiry is whether soccer fans were misled about the location and quality of the seats they paid for. The move makes Texas one of several states now scrutinizing the practices of the tournament's organizer.
The complaints focus on what buyers were promised versus what they actually received. Some fans purchased so called Category 1 tickets expecting premium views of the field, only to find that the seating maps were later changed and their seats moved into sections with far less desirable sightlines. The gap between the advertised experience and the real one is what regulators are now examining.
The pattern has been described as a kind of bait and switch. A consumer buys a ticket within a broad seating category, believing they could land anywhere in that range, but is later notified of a far worse placement. In some cases, the best seats in the house turn out to have been reserved for even more expensive tickets that ordinary buyers were never offered.
In Texas, the legal basis for the inquiry is the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paxton is investigating whether FIFA violated that law, which bars businesses operating in Texas from engaging in deceptive practices, regardless of whether they are a local company or an international organization. The principle is that products and services must be sold as advertised, without bait and switch methods.
Texas is not acting alone. Its investigation follows similar moves by other states, with New York and New Jersey having subpoenaed FIFA over its ticketing practices and seat maps, while California opened an inquiry of its own. The scrutiny has been especially intense around the matches scheduled for MetLife Stadium, where fans say they have been misled ahead of the games.
The stakes for buyers are high because of how much the tickets cost. Seats for the 2026 tournament have been selling for thousands of dollars under FIFA's dynamic pricing model, with some tickets for the championship match in New Jersey listed at more than 10,000 dollars. Those prices have sharpened complaints from fans who feel they did not get what they paid for.
Investigators are using their subpoena power to obtain internal documents and communications, in order to look behind FIFA's practices and gather evidence. Any resulting lawsuit could be filed under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and consumers who were harmed could be entitled to so called treble damages, meaning compensation of up to three times the amount they paid. A resolution, however, could take well over a year.