DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — International Football Federation (FIFA) president Gianni Infantino on Monday defended controversial ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup, revealing that organizers had received a record 150 million requests for tickets in the past two weeks.

Speaking at the World Sports Summit in Dubai, Infantino stressed that all revenues from next year’s tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada would be pumped back into football around the world.

Infantino’s comments were his first public remarks since the ticketing furore erupted earlier this month, with fan groups branding ticket prices as “extortionate” and “astronomical.”

FIFA later responded to the criticism by announcing that a sliver of tickets on sale would be priced at $60.

“In the last few days, you’ve probably seen there is a lot of debate about ticketing and ticket prices,” Infantino told the Dubai conference on Monday.

“We have six, seven million tickets on sale and we started two weeks ago. I can tell you in two weeks, 15 days, we received 150 million ticket requests. This shows how powerful the World Cup is.”

Infantino said the majority of ticket requests had come from the United States, followed by requests from Germany and Britain.

“If you think that in 100 years of history of the World Cup, FIFA has sold 44 million tickets in total, so in two weeks for the next World Cup, we could have filled 300 years of World Cups,” Infantino said. 

“This is absolutely crazy.”

“And what is important, what is crucial is that the revenues that are generated from this are going back to the game all over the world and FIFA is the only organisation in the world...that finances football in the entire world. 

“Without FIFA there will be no football in 150 countries in the world. There is football thanks to these revenues that we generate from the World Cup, which we reinvest all over the world.”

Fan group Football Supporters Europe (FSE) had been among the most prominent critics of FIFA’s pricing strategy for 2026.

The group said earlier this month tickets would cost almost five times more than tickets for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.