England supporters buying through the official travel club are set to be charged almost £200 for a ticket to the opening World Cup game against Croatia.
The Football Association is expected to share pricing information with the England Supporters Travel Club (ESTC) later on Thursday afternoon, but the Croatian federation has already announced pricing for its equivalent ‘participant member association’ (PMA) ticket allocation.
The Croatian federation says there are 2,010 Category 3 or value tier tickets available at $265 each (£198) for the England match in Dallas on June 17, with the expectation that England fans will pay the same.
The standard tier tickets will cost $500 (£373) each according to the Croatian federation website, while the premier tickets are $700 (£523) each. Altogether the Croatian PMA allocation is 4,022 tickets.
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The PMA allocation prices are fixed and not subject to ‘dynamic’ price increases — but with the cheapest tickets starting at nearly £200 fans may feel they are already expensive enough.
A random selection draw is due to be opened by tournament organizers FIFA at 4pm UK time on Thursday.
All fans — not just those able to purchase tickets through the PMA allocation — will be able to go online between now and January 13 and order as many tickets as they would like, also at fixed prices which FIFA has yet to confirm.
Those fans will discover after the closure of the sale window how many tickets they have successfully obtained, with their credit cards then being charged accordingly.
