I won tickets through FIFA’s World Cup lottery; a loss would have been better
America’s favorite sport is not football, or soccer, but screwing over sports fans, which is why FIFA should hold its World Cup in the United States permanently.
The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and NCAA should all take a course from FIFA on how to defraud customers. What has happened so far to ticket-buying fans who plan to attend these World Cup matches is the second chapter of the Bernie Madoff Handbook For Client Relations.
I know. I got duped.
FIFA’s World Cup ticketing switcheroo
The only way to secure tickets to one of the nine matches held at Arlington Stadium in Arlington, Texas was to put my name into FIFA’s lottery system. And hope.
In an effort to dispel the widely accepted notion that I am “The Most Financially Responsible Person on the Planet,” I went big in the application process. No more would someone call me "Cheap,” “Beyond Frugal,” “Stingy,” “Miserly,” “Scrooge’s Twin” or “Horrible.”
I applied for four matches. There were five categories of tickets, all color coded; I went Blue — Category 4. Not the most expensive. Not the least expensive. In the middle.
The red flag: I could not select a seat, but rather just a section. Sure. Probably not going to win anyway.
Two months later, I open an email that says I am “A Winner.” Finally; I’ve won something. This win allows me to buy two tickets to the Japan-Netherlands match at Arlington Stadium in Arlington, Texas on June 14. Because I paid “in the middle,” that should mean two decent seats at Arlington Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Price of ONE ticket — $430. After I was done kicking the trash can, and completed my breathing exercises, I clicked “BUY.”
A few months later, this win feels more like a loss. My winning combination and $930 gives me two seats where I will have to duck to miss American Airlines Flight 1374 from Mexico City to DFW.
“LEVEL: Upper concourse. Section 439. Row 24. Seats 17 and 18.”
Only six rows from the top.
Had I known these were the seats, I would never have clicked “BUY.” Had I known these were my seats, I would have clicked, “Go To H---“
Angry World Cup ticket holders have little recourse
Since FIFA announced the ticket prices, and then fans learned what seats they had actually bought, the governing body has been justifiably ridiculed all over the world. Since FIFA announced the seat locations, people have howled from Boston to Los Angeles.
On Wednesday in Mexico City, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, according to the Associated Press, said the average ticket price is comparable to U.S. pro sports playoffs.
Correct. If every playoff game was a Super Bowl.
“In all of my years doing this, I have never seen anything close to this; I think this is unprecedented in sports,” Paige Farragut said in a phone interview. For more than 20 years, Farragut worked for the Texas Rangers, and served as a senior VP of ticket sales.
“The only real recourse is to go through your credit card companies.”
The outrage over these and other practices by FIFA has created the oddest ménage à trois: Texas has joined New Jersey and California in investigating FIFA’s policies. Some of this could have been avoided with a modest level of restriction and regulation, but … maybe that’s why FIFA gave President Donald Trump a peace prize.
Always on the hunt for a headline, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said in a statement, “I will work to ensure that FIFA is engaging in ethical and honest business practices so that Texas fans are treated fairly. Sports have a unique power to bring people together, and FIFA must understand that Texans take their competition — and their consumer right — seriously.”
This is the first World Cup where “dynamic pricing” has been used; it allows teams, or events, to adjust pricing based on demand, or the at least the projected demand.
“This is a bait and switch. When you advertise one thing and deliver another, it’s on FIFA to fix it,” Farragut said. “I was in this for 25 years, and I am all for dynamic pricing, and demand should drive up the price. You also need to know what you’re going to get. There has to be transparency, and here there was none.
“And now the people who don’t want a refund, they’re stuck because they want to go to the game. That’s why they bought the tickets in the first place.”
Phone calls to FIFA’s 1-800 help line were almost as effective as the email through its online “customer support” portal; optimistic they’ll return the message before the start of the World Cup — in 2030.
Serves me right; I knew better than to spend the money.
