THE United States is Fifa’s new best friend. Fifa president Gianni Infantino has been cosying up to Donald Trump and the Republican administration, seemingly supporting a politician in a way that contravenes Fifa’s usual stance against political endorsement and messaging from fans.

Football’s global governing body has also moved into offices in Miami, and most notably of all, the US will be hosting both the 2025 Club World Cup and the 2026 World Cup. Fifa's focus on its relationship with the US is such that it is easy to forget that there are two other co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup — Mexico and Canada.

What is behind this switch in focus to the United States?

Though Fifa is still courting rich rulers and politicians in the Middle East, where it has held six of the last seven Club World Cups (the one exception, in Morocco, was still decked out in adverts for Saudi tourism) and awarded World Cup hosting to Qatar (2022) and Saudi Arabia (2034), it has clearly turned a major part of its attention to the land of unfettered capitalism in the West.

Part of the reason will be the way the United States treats sports. Most games are entertainment events and opportunities to make money, rather than testing the qualities of two teams in a sporting match.

This is not new and not limited to the United States, but as with anything related to using such occasions to make money, the US takes it to the extreme.

TV broadcasts are built around advertising, stadiums are named after sponsors rather than location, and the seemingly endless regular season games in some US sports are as much marketing exercises as tests of sporting merit. 

One surprise is that many sports teams don’t wear sponsors on their shirts, but that is as much to do with individual sponsorships and protection of wider branding, which could potentially clash with third-party shirt sponsors, as it is tradition.

Last week, the Times of London and the New York Times both reported that Fifa plans to use dynamic ticket pricing for the upcoming World Cup.

With dynamic pricing, ticket prices fluctuate based on demand, and the regular high demand for World Cup tickets means the price of a general sale ticket could skyrocket.

“We are very critical of the idea, it does not belong in football,” Ronan Evain, the executive director of Football Supporters Europe, said on Twitter.

“Fifa is a highly profitable machine with huge reserves, there is no justification for raising prices.”

But this is another part of the sporting experience that will be accepted as the norm in the United States, and one that will benefit Fifa. 

As reported by the Times, Fifa will take all of the ticket revenue from these World Cup matches, with none going towards local venues, organisers or infrastructure.

In the US high ticket prices are often even celebrated as an achievement in itself.

Regular examples of this have been seen with Lionel Messi touring the stadiums of the United States with Inter Miami, bumping up prices as he does so, which has somehow been seen in some quarters as a positive despite pricing out existing and potential new long-term fans.

A recent pre-season Women’s National Basketball Association game involving Caitlin Clark led to an average ticket price of $670 (£497). 

Supply and demand is the excuse, but it moves sports ever closer to being mostly about one-off, corporate hospitality-oriented events rather than something for the local community and fans to become a regular part of.

Meanwhile, Messi’s absence for some Inter Miami games has been treated as if a concert headliner pulled out of the gig or festival, rather than a footballer being rotated by their manager or unavailable due to injury.

Football’s move towards corporate hospitality culture rather than fan culture is seen at big events around the world, especially at Uefa finals, where the proportion of tickets given to fans dwindles, replaced by sponsors, but again, this can be the norm in the US.

Earlier this month, emails were sent out to fans of MLS clubs via some teams’ supporter mailing lists advertising 2026 World Cup hospitality package deals. The packages included tickets for all games at a particular venue and single-team tickets.

Watching every game at the New York-New Jersey stadium (which will host the final) in this manner would cost a minimum of $68,150 (£50,525) per person. At the lower end of the scale, watching the group games and one last 16 match-up at the stadium in Philadelphia would cost $19,700 (£14,605).

Amid all of this, there has been evidence that dynamic ticket pricing can work both ways.

The 2025 Club World Cup has not proven popular with fans in the US so far. Full price adult tickets from group stage matches such as Ulsan HD versus Mamelodi Sundowns in Orlando, and Wydad AC versus Al Ain FC in Washington, are available for less than $35 (£26).

Even tickets for some games involving Premier League clubs are available for less than £40.

This will not be the case at the 2026 World Cup, though, where the price of some general sale tickets will likely reach the thousands.

It becomes clear why Fifa chose the US as its latest money-making project. 

Like many organisations and leagues, it is becoming less about what it can give back to the game and more about what it can take from fans. 

In this case, that will mostly be done through ticketing — seats in NFL stadiums, sold via ticket companies in a culture already set up to squeeze as much money from fans as they can.