Club World Cup tickets: Chelsea fans say Fifa shot themselves in foot
Will the first expanded Club World Cup be a success or did Fifa bungle the ticket sales irreparably? City AM asked two Chelsea fans who are spending thousands to attend.
For lifelong Chelsea fan John Hand, 62, a trip to the Club World Cup has been several years in the making. “When we won the Champions League in 2021 Fifa said they wanted to hold it in four years, so it has always been in the back of our minds to do this,” he says.
Like his friend Hand, Chris Rayburn is a home and away season ticket holder and went to Poland for last month’s Europa Conference League final triumph. “I’ve seen us win pretty well every major competition,” he says. “I’d have FOMO if I didn’t go.”
Chelsea are due to play their group games in Atlanta and Philadelphia, starting on Monday next week against Los Angeles FC, and as such Fifa’s $1bn competition in the US is also an opportunity to broaden horizons, says Rayburn.
“We went to Japan for the Club World Cup [which was then an annual event, in 2012]. It’s a chance to see other places,” adds Hand. “Would I have gone to Wroclaw if not for the Conference League? Probably not.”
Wider sentiment around the Club World Cup, which has been expanded to 32 teams, and will now take place every four years in the summer, has been mixed to say the least. For Fifa, much is riding on how it goes down when the action kicks off this weekend in Miami.
Rayburn is going out to the US for the whole month-long tournament, which concludes in New York on 13 July. He expects the trip to cost around £5,000, despite using Avios points and house swaps to reduce the cost of flights and accommodation.
Hand is only going for the group stage and budgeting for an outlay of £1,500-£2,000. “Because we got knocked out of both cups early and didn’t have any games outside of London from February to May I’ve saved a few quid,” he says.
It might be even more expensive had Fifa not been forced into slashing the price of tickets as the Club World Cup approached. Happily, Rayburn was able to cancel his original order and rebook at a discount, reducing the cost of attending games from $2,031 (£1,496) to $838 (£619).
“It’s expensive, but what do you do? I’m going to the US, am I going to quibble?” says Hand, although he adds: “It does seem to have been very badly organised.”
‘I’d like to think Club World Cup will be success’
“When Fifa came out with the original prices in January, I think a lot of people said ‘I’m not going’ and made alternative plans,” says Rayburn. “I think Fifa really shot themselves in the foot with that.”
As a result, both men expect the number of UK Chelsea fans travelling to the Club World Cup to number in the hundreds rather than thousands. “Around us, we’ve found a few – 20-odd,” says Hand. “Beyond that I haven’t met many at all.”
Neither has experienced difficulty obtaining travel approval, despite fears that the Trump administration’s hardline policies might impact numbers of visitors for the tournament. They have, however, had to submit their social media accounts to immigration officials.
The Club World Cup has faced criticism – that it is an unnecessary cash-grab and adds to ailing players’ workloads – and even the two Chelsea die-hards are divided on the merits of the revamped competition.
“Personally, I can’t see it being a huge success,” says Hand, although Rayburn is more enthusiastic: “I’m looking forward to it. We’ll have to wait and see how it transpires but I’d like to think it’s the start of a tournament that becomes a big success.”
Rayburn expects South American teams – and their support – in particular to be heavily invested, having witnessed their fandom at close quarters. “Corinthians brought 30,000 to Japan [in 2012]. It’s a much bigger deal for them than European clubs.”