NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- A thousand lucky New Yorkers will win $50 tickets to the FIFA World Cup in June and July, giving them a way around sky-high prices that have stirred anger among soccer fans.
A lottery opening at 10 a.m. on May 25 will grant the tickets plus free roundtrip bus trips to MetLife Stadium, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Thursday at a press conference in Harlem alongside the head of the NYNJ Host Committee, Alex Lasry.
“We know that ticket prices for this tournament have soared into the thousands of dollars,” Mamdani said. “We are making sure that working people will not be priced out of the game that they helped to create.”
Residents can enter the lottery once daily and entries will be capped at 50,000 a day over the course of a few days, Mamdani said. Tickets will be non-transferable and dispensed directly to winners at bus-boarding locations. The program covers the five group stage matches and two knockout round matches, with about 150 tickets allocated per game.
The deal with FIFA, secured through a partnership with the NYNJ Host Committee, comes amid vocal opposition from fans to high prices for tickets and transport fares. Following pushback, New Jersey Transit said this month it would reduce its controversial $150 World Cup ticket price to $105. The agency then cut the fare again, to $98.
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