But in some cases, genuine fans looking to offload tickets are met with downvotes if they appear to be profiting.

“If your post isn’t anti-FIFA in some way, you don’t get traction,” says David Dirring, an Atlanta-based data scientist who has also created a ticketing tool. “My friend got too many tickets in the lottery, so I built a tool for him on Claude to help him price them. I got lit up on the subreddit because I was seen as helping a seller—even though it’s a marketplace, and fans will want to buy tickets from them.”

Alongside posting the latest ticket releases from FIFA’s ongoing “last-minute” sales window, the subreddit has created back-channel marketplaces on WhatsApp. That means fans can circumvent FIFA’s 30 percent fee on the official resale. The chat got so popular that a second group had to be created after the first reached WhatsApp’s 1,024-member limit. The subreddit’s moderators say there are transactions most hours.

Coleman, who works in finance for a major tech company and also asked that his last name not be used for privacy reasons, is a moderator of r/WorldCup2026Tickets. He secured four tickets to a New York game for $500 each—the seller traveled to his Manhattan office to do the transaction in person. Officially listed for resale at $800 each, the 15 percent buyer’s fee would’ve jacked their final cost up to $920—meaning Coleman saved a total of $1,680.

“People have been trying to figure out ways to avoid that fee, but it's impossible to avoid without risks,” says Coleman. “But I think there’s an unspoken trust on Reddit that makes it unique—the community really looks out for each other.”

Elsewhere, Redditors have posted news of potential class action lawsuits against FIFA, brought by fans who allege they were assigned worse seats than they paid for (FIFA revealed a new front-row category for thousands of dollars per ticket in April, months after the lottery phase closed). Non-coders have also shared homemade websites claiming FIFA’s original seat maps misled supporters into believing prized sideline seats were available when most may have actually been reserved for hospitality.

The displeasure may explain the glut of tickets still for sale—more than 260,000, according to SeatSidekick, with little over a week before the tournament begins.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London, says disrupting FIFA is seen by many as morally acceptable given the high ticket prices and history of corruption surrounding the organization. He adds that the proliferation of AI tools—this is the first World Cup in the generative-AI era—could lead to a cat-and-mouse game between tech-savvy users and the organizations they seek to expose. “It leads to humans ‘creating’ technology that can only be combated with more advanced versions of AI,” Chamorro-Premuzic says.

FIFA didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Luke says the organization shut down the main route he and others used to pull data, but he has since found a work-around. He believes his website actually benefits soccer’s governing body. “I’m sure FIFA won’t be happy that I’m creating a tool from its data and showing the world a better user interface,” he says. “But I’m providing it business—my website helps fans find official tickets at a price they’re comfortable with, in a seat they’re happy with.”

One such customer is Luke himself. He used his website to pick out two prime seats to see Japan play in Dallas. Like most, he overpaid—even with all of FIFA’s ticketing data, he had no idea prices would plummet. But he’s just happy he gets to see a World Cup game with his girlfriend.

“The irony is that tools like SeatSidekick showing prices falling may be fueling the confidence to hold even longer,” he says. “People are really anti-FIFA now.” But they’ll always be pro soccer.