The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have launched an investigation into Fifa’s ticketing practices around the 2026 World Cup, focusing specifically on the matches due to take place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The investigation, announced Wednesday by New York’s Letitia James and New Jersey’s Jennifer Davenport, centers on fans who say they were misled about the location of the seats and on claims that Fifa’s own public messaging around tickets has contributed to the inflated prices seen throughout the tournament.

A Fifa spokesperson declined to comment.

Though the issues described as being part of the investigation are relevant to all games of the upcoming World Cup, the attorneys general are specifically requesting details about ticketing at MetLife Stadium, which will host eight matches including the 19 July final.

Both officials took aim at Fifa in public statements, with James focusing on the location of seats.

“No one should be manipulated into paying sky-high prices for seats, and fans should be able to trust that the tickets they purchase will be the ones they receive,” James said in part.

Davenport, meanwhile, specifically accused Fifa of practicing “fake scarcity” in its ticketing practices – withholding blocks of tickets from sale in order to drive up the prices of the seats that remain. The allegation has taken hold among several fans and journalists who have scoured Fifa’s ticketing maps, but this marks the first time the claim has been made by a law enforcement authority with jurisdiction.

The state officials were joined in announcing the investigation by Samuel A A Levine, the commissioner of the New York City department of consumer and worker protection (DCWP), who said that Fifa’s reported conduct would be “in violation of the city’s consumer protection law”.

After the investigation was announced, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill expressed support in a statement.

“No one should be allowed to exploit New Jersey fans or those coming to our state,” the statement read. “I applaud Attorneys General Davenport and James for standing up on behalf of consumers and investigating whether they have been misled.”

Rising prices

Fifa has faced widespread criticism over its handling of ticketing for the World Cup, set to kick off in two weeks in 16 cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada. The tournament marks the first time that soccer’s world governing body has used dynamic pricing, a practice that sees ticket prices fluctuate depending on demand. In reality, though, dynamic pricing usually has the effect of raising overall prices for admission to events, and that trend has certainly been seen at this summer’s World Cup. The average price of a ticket to a World Cup game has hovered above $1,000 since tickets went on sale, though there is ostensibly a price floor of about $60 per ticket.

A Guardian analysis at the start of the year found that the cheapest World Cup tickets were hit with the stiffest increase in prices, a trend that has only continued in the months since.

The backlash to the prices has seen Fifa make small tranches of seats available at lower prices in very specific instances. In December, it announced a limited allocation of tickets dubbed Supporter Entry Tier, with prices capped at $60 per ticket but comprising just 1.6% of all available tickets. More recently, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that a small number of tickets to games at MetLife Stadium other than the final would be made available for $50 each to New York City residents, a price that includes round-trip bus travel – a significant factor given New Jersey Transit’s hiked prices for buses and trains to and from the matches.

Seat placement

The actual placement of the seats has been another evolving story. Last September, Fifa officials told the Guardian that the standard ticket categories used by Fifa for World Cups, with Category 1 generally falling along the sidelines, Category 2 on the endlines and Category 3 in the corners, would be done away with for the tournament. Instead, the Fifa officials said, ticket categories would be based entirely on the distance from the pitch, with the entire lower bowl of a given stadium comprising Category 1, the next level up comprising Category 2 and so forth.

When tickets went on sale, though, a system much closer to the Fifa categories of old was used, with Category 1 comprising the entire lower bowl plus second-level seats along the sidelines, Category 2 comprising upper-level tickets along the sidelines and Category 3 and Category 4 tickets comprising small allocations in the uppermost reaches of the large-capacity stadiums used throughout the tournament.

In April, Fifa created a new category of ticket comprising the first several rows of seats next to the field, with prices for that category running several times greater than the remainder of Category 1.

“Reports indicate that fans who bought tickets before these new zones were introduced were excluded from those seats and instead assigned less desirable seats, including seats far from the field or behind the goals,” the announcement of the investigation reads.

It is standard practice for Fifa to sell World Cup tickets based on category and assign specific seats later. On social media and in various press reports, though, fans have expressed dismay that the tickets they received did not match with the level they bought. In some cases, for example, a Category 2 ticket could net a buyer a seat in the last row of a World Cup stadium.