FIFA president Gianni Infantino defended the global governing body’s handling of three of the World Cup’s most controversial storylines: Iran’s participation in the tournament, high ticket prices, and visa restrictions for people trying to come to the U.S.
“We don’t live on the moon, we live on planet earth, and you have to deal with different situations,” Infantino told reporters on Wednesday. “We try to do our best.”
The press conference in Mexico City was Infantino’s first in three years. At his last pre-World Cup press conference in Qatar in 2022, Infantino notoriously said: “Today I have very strong feelings, today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arab, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled, today I feel a migrant worker,” in an attempt to show his sympathy for victims of Qatar’s preparations for the tournament, remarks he joked Wednesday that “you all remember.”
Infantino was not nearly as conciliatory when talking about U.S. immigration policy.
American officials have so far turned away team staff members, federation officials, journalists and a referee. Infantino response? “Maybe sometimes it’s good to just chill, relax. We work on everything, to solve everything.”
He later clarified: “When I say to chill, I don’t mean to chill and do nothing, to trust us that we are working behind the scenes.”
Discussing the case of Somali referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the U.S. Infantino said what happened to him is “unfortunate,” but reiterated that “we don’t control everything.”
Infantino said he’s “very happy” to have a “great relationship” with U.S. President Donald Trump and that “without his engagement and his involvement…it would have been impossible to organize a World Cup in the United States.”
Andrew Giuliani, the head of Trump’s World Cup task force, said that he had a “very good reason” for blocking Artan’s entry.
Infantino also took credit for getting Iran to the tournament amid an ongoing war with the U.S., the nation hosting all of the team’s group stage matches. “I’m very happy we managed to get Iran to come and play in the World Cup and I’m proud of the work of my team and grateful to the administrations of the three host countries for having cooperated with us to make this happen,” he said.
The World Cup kicks off in Mexico City on Thursday with a match between Mexico and South Africa at Estadio Azteca.
Defending High Ticket Prices
Infantino spent much of the press conference justifying FIFA’s business model, saying the governing body reinvests in soccer around the world—something he repeatedly said “nobody else is doing.” (“Do you think Cape Verde ever would have the chance to qualify for the World Cup?” he said.)
Infantino said FIFA did “intense and extensive analysis in this particular market,” and concluded if FIFA set ticket prices lower, the money would’ve gone to scalpers instead.
“In this situation they could’ve gone down as well, they didn’t really go down, shows maybe the price point was the right one,” Infantino said.
FIFA is expecting to generate about $11 billion from the World Cup, he said Wednesday. Infantino said FIFA could probably make $30 billion in revenue if it wanted to sell TV rights to pay channels rather than over-the-air ones—a dig at “everyone else in football” including the Champions League and European domestic leagues—but wants to make sure fans can watch matches for free.
Infantino said FIFA is “very relaxed” about the increasing number of state attorneys general that have questioned or opened investigations into FIFA’s ticketing practices.
“If we do something wrong, then probably everyone selling tickets in North America is doing something wrong as well,” Infantino said. “We welcome every investigation, we’re happy to present everything and we’re happy to make our case.”
Infantino also invoked sky-high ticket prices at the NBA Finals to defend the price of World Cup tickets. (He had previously claimed that the cheapest tickets to the World Cup are less expensive than college football games.)
“Our average price, which is below $500, is again the lowest of the American sports on average if we take the playoffs. I think we can at least compare the playoffs of an American sport with the World Cup,” he said “If you look at the final of the NBA, the Knicks against San Antonio. I don’t know how many people are watching that on TV, 10 million maybe, I don’t know, the World Cup will be watched by 6 billion people. So in terms of importance, the World Cup is much, much more important.”
Only a small subset of World Cup tickets were listed at $60. FIFA has recently been increasing ticket giveaways backed by corporate sponsors as a method of last-minute ticket sales.
Infantino marveled that New York mayor Zohran Mamdani got better coverage for his 1,000 tickets at $50 each for New Yorkers, when, he claims, FIFA released thousands more tickets at just $60.
Mamdani “probably has better communication people than us, probably he is better than me, but I want to congratulate him,” Infantino said.
