\n<\/p>\n
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has launched a public petition against Fifa\u2019s use of dynamic pricing for World Cup tickets, telling the Guardian that it amounts to an \u201caffront to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s rise from little-known state assemblyman to heavily favored Democratic frontrunner for the mayoralty of the largest city in the United States has been one of the political stories of the year \u2013 not least because he identifies as a socialist, and has stumped for policies that most in his party either do not believe in, or are hesitant to support publicly.<\/p>\n
Chief among Mamdani\u2019s focuses has been affordability \u2013 and in an exclusive interview with the Guardian\u2019s Football Weekly podcast set to drop on Thursday, he made clear that is the basis for his action against Fifa, which will stage next year\u2019s World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have long been quite troubled by how the supposed stewards of the game have opted for profit time and time again at the expense of the people that love this game,\u201d said Mamdani. \u201cAnd I think what is stunning to me is these demands that we are putting forward, they are just demands that go back to what [Fifa] has done in previous World Cups. And yet what they are seeing with the World Cup here in the United States, Mexico and Canada is the prospect of increasing their revenues up close to 400% compared to what they were in Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani dipped into World Cup history, saying that the last time the men\u2019s World Cup was held in the United States, in 1994, tickets could be had for less than $200. Indeed, Fifa in 1993 set a low-end ticket price of $25 (worth about $56 in 2025), with the most expensive ticket to the final going for $475 (worth about $1,000 in 2025). Fifa announced that ticket prices for group games in 2026 would start at $60 and hit $6,730 for the best seat at the final, but crucially those are the figures before dynamic pricing takes effect. Both are expected to rise considerably over the course of the multi-phase sales process, which began on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just no chance for so many who love this game so much to actually be able to go and see this,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cThis also has a real impact on the potential for the atmosphere of the World Cup and just how many fans will actually be there. Because so often the people who get the tickets quickest are not the ones who are actually the most eager to be there. They\u2019re the ones who are the most excited at the prospect of a profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s petition calls for Fifa to end dynamic pricing for World Cup tickets, set aside 15% of tickets for local residents, and place a cap on the amount tickets are allowed to be resold for on Fifa\u2019s ticketing platform (Fifa will do this for games in Mexico due to local laws, but will not implement caps on its exchange for other World Cup games).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if you don\u2019t ask, you cannot win,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cI think there\u2019s still so many people who have not even heard of [this] affront to the game. And I\u2019m hopeful just in the last few hours since we\u2019ve launched this, thousands of people have added their names and we\u2019re going to keep making the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani shocked US politics when he won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, beating more prominent names, such as former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. However, his win has not been met with universal acclaim \u2013 including from his own party. Several prominent Democrats, including House minority leader and fellow New Yorker Hakeem Jeffries, have declined to endorse Mamdani as Cuomo has re-entered the race as an independent, alongside incumbent Eric Adams.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe they support dynamic pricing,\u201d Mamdani joked when asked why his victory has drawn pushback from some in his party. \u201cThere are an ever-growing number that are joining our campaign each and every day. And it\u2019s a campaign that started at 1%. Maybe if I had to characterize it in terms of a recent upset, maybe this is the Leicester City of campaigns. And so I think there are still many that we are introducing ourselves to, but I\u2019m excited to earn their support.\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani is a longtime soccer fan who has supported Arsenal since his childhood in Uganda, saying he had magnets of the team\u2019s Invincibles side of 2003-04 on his fridge. He offered the \u201ccontested point\u201d that the Gunners are the most popular team in Uganda.<\/p>\n \u201c[Former manager] Ars\u00e8ne Wenger was one of the first coaches to bring in a number of African players into the team,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd some of my early memories are memories of Kanu, of Lauren, of Kolo Tour\u00e9, of Emmanuel Ebou\u00e9, Alex Song \u2026 it has been a real part of just my life and my identity and also my willingness to internally believe in that this is the year and this is the season. It\u2019s a good preparation for being a democratic socialist.\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani acknowledged the possibility that, as New York City mayor, he could attend the 2026 World Cup final, where he would be sat near Donald Trump. Mamdani said he expects the US president would be booed, as he was at this year\u2019s US Open men\u2019s final.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no amount of censorship that can quiet the actual response of people when they see this president in person, because we\u2019re talking about someone who is already attacking the very fabric of life in this city,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a place where I will make the case once and again for the working-class New Yorkers that they\u2019re leaving behind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has launched a public petition against Fifa\u2019s use of dynamic pricing for World Cup tickets, telling the Guardian that it amounts to an \u201caffront to the game.\u201d Mamdani\u2019s rise from little-known state assemblyman to heavily favored Democratic frontrunner for the mayoralty of the largest city in the United<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[130,12565,743,1543,6193,3472,792,4224,550,6195],"class_list":{"0":"post-20442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cup","9":"tag-dynamic","10":"tag-fans","11":"tag-fifa","12":"tag-mamdani","13":"tag-pricing","14":"tag-profit","15":"tag-putting","16":"tag-world","17":"tag-zohran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}