FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday:
💬 “Until today, we have sold over six million tickets. The demand has been unprecedented, not by a little bit, but by a factor of 10 or more.â€
Well, if that was the case, nobody told Guadalajara.
There were swathes of empty seats at the Akron Stadium, situated on the city's eastern edge. These were particularly concentrated towards the pitchside VIP section at the centre of the east stand, but patches of red seats could be seen throughout — leaving what looked like thousands of empty seats in total.
This game was the first true test of the World Cup's pricing plan — Mexico's home opener at the Azteca was always going to sell out. By contrast, South Korea vs Czech Republic took place between the 25th and 37th ranked sides in the world, in one of the tournament's poorest host cities.
Mexican fans still dominated the supporter numbers — conspicuous in the shirt of the national side — with a healthy number of South Koreans, but few Czech fans in attendance. Czech Republic only qualified for the tournament via the play-offs in March and will cover the third-most miles of any team in the group stage.
FIFA announced the official attendance as 44,985 — and that implied just 700 seats remained unsold, which clearly undersold the huge stretches of empty space.
The Athletic asked FIFA if the attendance was based on ticket sales or numbers through the gate. In response, a FIFA spokesperson could not answer, stating they could only “refer to the official attendanceâ€.
