The England Football Association has found a new revenue stream that makes cryptocurrency schemes look quaint: charging supporters £2,600 for the privilege of watching their national team play Mexico in a World Cup knockout match.
Let’s be clear about what this figure represents. It is not the cost of a weekend in Switzerland. It is not a deposit on a used car. It is the minimum entry fee on FIFA’s official resale platform for one human being to sit in a stadium and watch ninety minutes of football. A single ticket. For Mexico.
The original allocation sold out in minutes, naturally, because England fans will queue through a blizzard to buy something that will make them poorer. The resale market has since discovered a delightful loophole: if you want to attend, you will either find £2,600 down the back of your sofa or you will watch from home like a peasant.
This is what modern sports fandom looks like when every stakeholder decides that tradition and community are secondary to quarterly earnings. The clubs need revenue. The federations need revenue. The resale platforms need revenue. The only person who does not need revenue is the fan, who already paid for their mortgage, their season ticket, and their emotional investment in eleven players who will probably lose to Mexico anyway.
The beautiful irony: at these prices, the stadiums will be filled with corporate hospitality guests and investment bankers who cannot name three Mexican players. The actual supporters—the ones who sing, who care, who bleed for this—will be at the pub, nursing a pint that costs less than their ticket would have.