During the Scotland vs. Morocco match last week, 65-year-old John McNicholas stood outside Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. — one ear tuned into the cheers of fans inside and the other pressed to a phone with StubHub customer service.

After spending over $1,200 on two seats, driving four hours from New Jersey to Boston, and hiking two miles from his hotel to the stadium, McNicholas learned that his World Cup tickets fell through.

The hardest part was breaking the news to his friend, David Wain, who was visiting from England to be McNicholas' plus-one. The two held out hope up until half-time.

" We hung around because we thought, well, somebody may be able to solve it at the last minute," he said. "But nothing occurred."

Since the World Cup began about two weeks ago, a growing number of fans who purchased resale game tickets say they were left empty-handed on match day — forcing them to either miss out on a rare opportunity or scramble to find new tickets, often costing twice or triple what they originally paid and for worse seats.

Many of the complaints have been aimed at StubHub, one of the biggest platforms for ticket resales, though some fans on social media have reported similar troubles with Vivid Seats and SeatGeek. It's the latest in a flurry of controversies over World Cup tickets, along with sky-high prices and seating chart confusion.

In an emailed statement to NPR, StubHub said the issue stems from FIFA's "ticketing infrastructure," including its app – which the vendor claims "has had significant performance issues that have affected transfers across all resale platforms."

Meanwhile, FIFA told NPR it can only guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platform. The soccer governing body, which also runs its own resale marketplace, added that it rejects StubHub's claims that FIFA was responsible for issues affecting fans' tickets.

"FIFA has no visibility over, or control of, secondary market ticket transactions carried out on third-party platforms. The transactions facilitated on these platforms occur entirely independently of FIFA's official ticketing platform," FIFA said.

Thousands of dollars, hours of travel and dashed dreams

Brad Michel, from San Antonio, Texas, purchased three seats near center-field on StubHub for roughly $15,600 in January 2025 — months before tickets went on sale on FIFA — believing it would be easier than trying to navigate the FIFA lottery system, which gave randomly selected fans a chance to purchase tickets.

" I thought by purchasing the tickets so far in advance, that I would forgo all of the drama that followed whenever the FIFA site opened up," he said.

The tickets were for Netherlands vs. Sweden in Houston, which he planned to attend with his 12-year-old son and his wife's father, who lives in Sweden.

Michel said he trusted Stubhub's FanProtect Guarantee policy, which promises a refund or "comparable" replacement seats if the original tickets fail to arrive. So, when two of his tickets never showed up and a StubHub representative offered him new seats, Michel was open to it. Then, he heard what the options were.

"They were gonna swap me my premium midfield, close-to-the-pitch seats, and they wanted me to trade or swap ticket-for-ticket with no additional refund, these nosebleed tickets or behind the goal," he said. "I told them, 'No way. I'm not taking those.'"

Michel later learned that what was deemed "comparable" tickets are at the sole discretion of StubHub. According to its website, the replacement tickets are determined by "cost, quality, availability and other factors."

Michel and his family ended up watching the match on TV at their Airbnb, but his attention was on the stands. He scanned the screen to locate his original seats, which to him, looked occupied. He said that, as of Thursday night, he's still hoping for a refund.

Brett Romas flew from Alberta, Canada, to Houston to attend the Portugal vs. Uzbekistan match with his 13-year-old son, who's a major fan of Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. But when the tickets arrived in his inbox, StubHub had sent ones for England vs. Ghana and in Boston.

Romas was up all night trying to fix the issue with the company. The morning of the game, a representative wrote in an email, "There has been an error in our system and the only thing we can do is to offer a refund." He was devastated, not only over the prospect of missing the game, but disappointing his son.

" We fly to a different country to come to this game and he was so excited, and then he goes to bed thinking that he's probably not gonna go, which was heartbreaking for me," he said.

Romas ended up buying another pair of tickets through FIFA. By then, the cost for two seats together had skyrocketed. So, he said he and his son had to sit separately for the game.

"It went from two seats beside each other in section 115 to two seats that were a row and five seats apart and in section 635," Romas said.

Not just a World Cup problem

StubHub said a majority of its ticket transfers have been successful and the company was actively working with FIFA to prevent further technical issues.

John Breyault, vice president at the National Consumers League, a consumer advocacy group, said the issue of missing tickets is not unique to the World Cup and it's happened before at other live events. He said it's often a result of ticket resellers listing seats for sale before they actually possess them. This is called speculative ticketing.

StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats have rules prohibiting the sale of speculative tickets. They also say they penalize sellers who fail to deliver their tickets, from imposing fees to a possible account suspension.

Breyault argued that company policies don't adequately protect the consumer and there needs to be more safeguards to prevent such practices. And while major ticketing companies offer refunds when tickets fall through, Breyault said it's cold comfort for fans who looked forward to the event and doled out money on travel and lodging.

" A refund, particularly for an event like the World Cup which is once in a lifetime, is not gonna cut it for most fans," he said. "They want to get in and see the game as they thought they were going to."

McNicholas from New Jersey doesn't know the next time he will have a chance to attend a World Cup match. The entire ordeal has left him feeling bitter about FIFA and secondary resale markets.

" We've spent so much time, money and effort to get where we're at — to actually just have the carpet pulled away from under us is a major disappointment," he said.