Nearly three million tickets for the World Cup in Qatar have been sold, FIFA announced on Sunday, revealing that the tournament should bring in a record 7.2 billion euros by the end of the year.
These 7.2 billion euros represent the revenue generated over the last four years by world football’s governing body, and exceed the initial estimate by one billion euros.
A FIFA spokesman told France Presse that 2.95 million tickets had been sold by the opening day on Sunday.
World Cup 2022: More tickets than in Russia 2018
The start of the World Cup has sparked huge interest in the 64 matches to be played over 29 days, despite the negative publicity surrounding Qatar’s hosting.
Queues have built up at the FIFA ticketing center in Doha and fans report long waits to access the official digital ticketing platform.
Taking these figures into account, Qatar has already surpassed Russia 2018, where just over 2.4 million tickets were sold.
The spokesperson explained that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Mexico, Great Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, France, India and Brazil were the countries of origin of most ticket buyers.
Infantino commented at a conference before 211 FIFA member associations that the “fantastic figures” have been achieved “despite covid and the various crises around the world“.
The Italian-Swiss leader also stated that new rules governing players’ agents will be announced this year, and expressed his desire to see more matches between teams from different regions, as well as an expanded World Cup.
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