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This edition covers:

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Keep your heads on a swivel and say your prayers - and by that, I mean log into your FIFA account starting 05 FEB (tomorrow! or today! depending on when you read this) because you may be able to find out if you were successful or not in your ticket requests. Email notifications will also start to go out.

Here’s the exact wording from FIFA:

If your application is successful or partially successful, you will receive an email at the address associated with your FIFA ticketing account no earlier than 5 February 2026.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a PMA supporter that purchased conditional Supporter Tickets and your team is eliminated from the Competition, will receive a refund for your Conditional Supporter Ticket(s), minus a refund fee of $10 USD as set out in the Ticket Terms of Sale.

This sales phase is subject to the Official Rules for the Random Selection Draw. If your ticket application is successful, you will be automatically purchasing tickets and your payment card will be automatically charged.

With previous reports from FIFA stating approximately 30% of tickets have been allocated thus far, it is expected that the majority of available tickets are allocated during this window via individual and PMA requests. If successful, charges to credit card start 09 FEB per the FAQ.

Next phase is when the true chaos will ensue. It is “first come, first served”. I’ll provide some advice in the next newsletter but if you think the user-experience was frustrating before, you’ll realize it was nothing compared to this phase. 🤪

I’ve mentioned this on the site and socials previously, but parking is a disaster and especially for sports in the US, expensive as hell. With minimal rail options in the US, parking is at a premium and properties are prepared to take advantage of it. Oh, and FIFA, too.

I honestly have no idea how parking fees are tied to FIFA but their official vendor is Just Park and there’s a specific site on FIFA for Parking. Each stadium has different pricing and you likely don’t even know what lot you’re purchasing ahead of time.

In recent days, fans discovered that purchasing a parking pass for Los Angeles matches starts at $250. Please note that transportation to and from the stadium will be chaotic no matter what and to allot plenty of time to traffic, security, queues, etc. It is not a “show up 30 minutes before kickoff” type of event. I attended the 2018 Brazil vs Costa Rica match in St. Petersburg and getting through the first ring of security took 90 minutes.

When you subscribed to this newsletter, the “Welcome” confirmation has a section where I ask any readers to share their stories of the World Cup upon joining.

Quite a few respond - I love it. One particular story caught my eye. He talked about unknowingly purchasing a fake ticket to the 1998 Final (missing the match and losing the money). His journey started in 1966, even attending the Final as a young lad, and has continued throughout the decades. We swapped numerous messages over a few weeks and I wanted to share it with people.

This is the glorious story of World Cup superfan, Steve…

Note: I have another good story to publish so hopefully you enjoy this segment. I started attempting to record stories in 2022 for a podcast but learned it was too much for me to maintain with all the other initiatives. Perhaps this will come to fruition in the future…

One of my most popular articles, and one that has been referenced by many media sites, is the visual I have for World Cup Ticket Prices since 1994.

Over the last decade, I naturally saved information and articles that referenced World Cup Ticket Prices (as FIFA doesn’t keep previous World Cup details available once the tournament is over). A couple years ago I put that research to visual representation as every tournament is hailed as “the most expensive World Cup in history!”. That’s naturally true with inflation so I also utilized the Consumer Price Index to see how each Category and Round related to one another tournament to tournament. To my surprise, the variance wasn’t as drastic as I thought it would be…

…until I added 2026 last month. I have some work to do to assist with the details more on the article because 2026 bars were so high, you could no longer read the other editions. To maximize the article please note that there’s two charts:

(A) At time of sale (B) Inflation to Nov/Dec 2025

You’ll find charts for: Opening Matches, Group Stage, R16, Quarterfinals, Semis, 3rd Place and FINAL.

For 2026, I used Phase 2 Pricing + the Average of unique prices for each stage (since they vary by Location & Teams for the first time ever).

Check out the article and images.

News has slowly leaked over the last few weeks on where teams will stay and train for their “Team Base Camps” during the World Cup. FIFA announced 64 approved locations in an online brochure and I posted an instagram reel that quickly illustrates all options in their catalog.

Given the overlaps in choices, it is also reported that some teams are going “rogue” in their selections. For fans, it is fun to see which teams choose opulence, privacy, central locations, etc. There’s a drastic difference between Fairmont Mayakoba and xyz.

I did some research and multiple outlets say FIFA will release the news in next 1-2 weeks. At this point, we’ll update our summary on it which is currently a few confirmations and a few rumors. For example, you can read reports that both Portugal and Uruguay confirmed Fairmont Mayakoba while others say Portugual’s coach, Roberto Martinez, hinted they’ll stay in Miami. Regardless, we’ll know all of these soon enough.

Interested in sending a question? Hit respond directly from your inbox to send a message to submit a question. I’m summarizing & generalizing the topics here:

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Always showing love to our OG’s with shouts to AI Language Tutor Languatalk and virtual personal card Businesscards.io!