DOHA
\n FIFA told on Saturday that 23.5 million tickets has been requested in the last round of ticket sale of World Cup which begins in less than seven months in Qatar.
\nArgentina, Brazil, England, France, Mexico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United States dominated the application of tickets; the body highlighted \u201cenormous demand.\u201d
\nThe most popular games are the final on December 18 alongside some of the group games which are already known: Argentina v Mexico, Argentina v Saudi Arabia, England v United States and Poland v Argentina, FIFA said in a statement.
\nFor matches where demand exceeds the number of tickets available, the requests will go into a random lottery. All the successful applicants will be told from May 31. Any remaining tickets will then go on general sale on a first-come first-served basis.
\nTicket prices are on average about 30 percent higher than for the Russia World Cup in 2018. The cheapest tickets are for Qataris and the army of migrant workers in the state who will pay as little as $10 to watch a first round group match.
\nBut for the final, the most expensive tickets cost more than $1,600 \u2014 a 45 percent hike on 2018.
\nSome 804,186 tickets were snapped up in the first round of sales in January-February.
\nDemand this 23 day window for applications was higher, as it followed the World Cup draw on April 1 which revealed when and where each team will play.
\nAbout two million tickets are available to the general public, with 1.2 million others going to sponsors and other backers.
\nThe first match between Senegal and Netherlands is on Nov 21 and the final on Dec 18 at the 80,000 capacity Lusail stadium.
\nQatar is predicting that up to 1.4 million people will visit the wealthy Gulf state for the first World Cup in an Arab country.
\nQatar has spent billions of dollars building seven new stadiums and refurbishing an eighth for the tournament.
\nFIFA has faced criticism for awarding the tournament to a country whose rights for migrant labourers have faced a fierce spotlight.
\nBut FIFA president Gianni Infantino has promised it will be the \u201cbest-ever\u201d World Cup and the global body is looking to the healthy ticket sales to back its case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DOHA FIFA told on Saturday that 23.5 million tickets has been requested in the last round of ticket sale of World Cup which begins in less than seven months in Qatar. Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Mexico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United States dominated the application of tickets; the body highlighted \u201cenormous demand.\u201d The most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-258302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n