Germany gave fans free trains. Qatar gave them a free metro. The US is charging $98 — and fans are hiring school buses. In 2006, Germany handed World Cup fans free local transport on match days. In 2018, Russia offered free long-distance trains between host cities. In 2022, Qatar made its metro free for the entire tournament. Then came the United States — where fans traveling to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey face a $98 round-trip train fare, and those heading to Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts will pay $80. The same trips normally cost NFL fans $12.90 and $20, respectively.
Officials insist the pricing reflects the genuine cost of expanded services and enhanced security, without burdening taxpayers. Fans see it differently: as one more toll on a tournament that has already priced out a significant share of its own audience through record ticket costs, expensive flights and eye-watering hotel rates.
“These costs should be borne by the organisation that is earning money out of these events — which is FIFA. It should not always be the host cities that take on all the expenses”.— David Gogishvili, senior researcher · University of Lausanne · 2026
The contrast between host cities is stark. Atlanta, Houston and Seattle have stadiums directly connected to rail networks, with standard fares. Miami-Dade County is offering free shuttles. Philadelphia is providing free rides home, funded by FIFA sponsor Airbnb. Kansas City is running $15 shuttles. New Jersey and Massachusetts are the outliers — partly because their stadiums are suburban venues built for car-dependent NFL crowds, where parking is now severely restricted due to expanded security perimeters and VIP areas, pushing far more fans onto public transit than usual.
Scots hire school buses. Brazilians wonder if they’ll have to walk.
Rory Phillips-Hunter, a 37-year-old Scot living in northern England, called the tournament “the most inaccessible World Cup there’s ever been”. Unable to find affordable transport from Providence, Rhode Island, to Foxborough, Massachusetts — 25 miles away — he and fellow Tartan Army members booked around 20 school buses for nearly 1,000 fans at roughly $50 per person, saving their group more than $85,000 compared to the $95 official bus fare. “When I look at that difference in cost”, he said, “that’s just profits you’re taking from us”.
Ynara Correa da Costa, a Brazilian attending her seventh World Cup, was initially confronted with a proposed $150 train fare from New York City to MetLife Stadium — where Brazil opens against Morocco. After public outcry, New Jersey officials lowered it to $98. The local host committee also secured additional buses and cut their price from $80 to $20, though the total bus capacity covers only 18,000 of the stadium’s 82,500 seats. “We’ll go to the match, that I know”, Costa said. “But how? Let’s see”.
David Gogishvili, a senior researcher at the University of Lausanne who studies major sports events, placed the dispute in its structural context: FIFA is expected to generate $13 billion in revenue from 2023 to 2026, yet it has resisted calls to absorb transit costs — arguing that no previous global event has been asked to do so. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has called on FIFA to cover the costs outright. FIFA pushed back, noting that its original agreements with host cities called for free fan transport, later amended to allow transit “at cost”. Nearly every World Cup from 1966 through 2018, a 2022 study co-authored by Gogishvili found, ran at a financial deficit.
- Source: AP