WORLD Cup tickets will be the most expensive ever seen after Fifa grabbed a share of the lucrative resale market for the first time.
The football governing body will get 30 per cent of each transaction, with seats already going for a “rip-off” £1,000.
Harry Kane’s England find out on Friday who and when they play.
England fans are fuming after discovering Fifa will take a 15 per cent cut from both the buyer and the seller with tickets often bought and sold online four or five times.
The unprecedented cash-grab will price out tens of thousands of Three Lions fans desperate to watch Harry Kane and our lads in the US, Canada or Mexico.
Only a small minority will get affordable seats, while official websites showed none available yesterday for less than £1,000 ahead of Friday’s World Cup draw.
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One secondary seller was already offering tickets at next July’s final for nearly £33,000.
Prices are rocketing owing to soaring demand – with more nations playing than ever before — and Fifa’s decision to freeze allocations to official fans.
The England Supporters Travel Club has 27,000 members — but will get just eight per cent of tickets at World Cup matches, as few as 3,600 at some 2026 venues.
Lucky ones will pay £85-£125 for group games or try for costlier tickets when fixed-price seats eventually go on sale online.
But many more look certain to fall into the clutches of resale sites.
England fans last night hit out at Fifa, likening the bloated Geneva-based football fiefdom to a tout.
Angry Chelsea supporter Richard Wilson, a 64-year-old Border Force case worker from Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, said: “It’s a total disgrace. But no one is surprised that Fifa’s fatcats are at it again – they’re behaving like touts.
“There’s no way any ordinary fan I know could afford to pay that much to watch England. We all know what Fifa stands for — F***ing International Fans Again.”
Millwall fan Keith Brown, 46, added: “I was intending to go to New York and try and see one or two games – but I can’t afford a second mortgage!”
Three Lions supporter Bharat Patel, 34, a panel beater from Ilford, East London, said: “At every World Cup they seem to make it more difficult for supporters like me to see my country.
“I earn £350 a week so if it is £1,000 that’s three weeks’ money for 90 minutes of footie. It is a rip-off.”
England’s eight per cent allocation could be 6,400 if they play in Dallas, or 6,600 in New York. But it could be just 3,600 if Thomas Tuchel’s players are in action in Toronto.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also in Friday’s draw, to be held in Washington DC.
A ticket for the World Cup Final next July is already being offered for £32,967
Thomas Concannon, of the Football Supporters’ Association, said fans will have to fork out more than double the outlay from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Checks of reseller website Vivid seats yesterday showed that a ticket for the World Cup Final next July is already being offered for £32,967.
The site claimed the Category One seat at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, with a hospitality package, was already “selling fast”.
Official Fifa sites showed no tickets less than £1,000 were being offered for any games in the US, Canada or Mexico, even though fixtures have yet to be drawn up.
Fifa — headed by US President Donald Trump’s pal Gianni Infantino — has yet to announce the range of fixed prices when tickets go on general sale from December 11.
But officials say they are governed by US laws which allow tickets to be resold at any price.
And they claim they are taking a 15 per cent cut from both buyer and seller every time a ticket changes hands to “deter” resales.
But a football source told The Sun: “England fans who can’t get an official ticket will be at the mercy of the online touts, effectively paying a kickback to Fifa.
“Fifa call it their new dynamic pricing model and say it’s normal and acceptable in the US but it looks certain to drive prices out of the reach of everyone but the prawn sandwich brigade.
“Every England match will undoubtedly be a high-demand game – and that can only mean one thing.”
A spokesman for Fifa said ringfenced allocations “will be set at a fixed price for the duration of the next ticket sales phase”.
He added: “The pricing model adopted for Fifa World Cup 26 reflects the existing market practice for major entertainment and sporting events within our hosts on a daily basis, soccer included.
“This is also a reflection of the treatment of the secondary market for tickets, which has a distinct legal treatment than in many other parts of the world. We are focused on ensuring fair access to our game.”
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