Scott Stinson: $7 water? FIFA unites the world in disbelief at stadium concession prices

A sign showing concession prices at Toronto Stadium for the World Cup. Photo by Scott Stinson /National Post

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Here is one way to think about the concession prices at World Cup games that might make them feel less, well, extortionate.

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If you consider that the face-value of a ticket to, say, Canada’s opening game in Toronto against Bosnia-Herzegovina was about $1,100 even for a cheap seat, then the cost of a pair of hot dogs and soft drinks at that game was a mere five per cent of the admission to the stadium. For a whole meal!

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Readers who are quick with math may have already deduced the other way to think about those hot dogs and soft drinks — sorry, “sparkling” soft drinks. Which is that they cost $57.50.

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A week into the World Cup there have already been plenty of scenes in stadiums around North America of jubilation and drama, and of heartbreak and joy. There have also been expressions of shock and amazement, some of them in the concourses as visitors discover how much it costs to buy anything at FIFA’s quadrennial party/light robbery.

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Even in a world where sky-high concession prices are fairly routine in a place like Toronto, these ones do cause a sharp intake of breath, and especially among those visitors from other countries who find the whole idea of a $17 beer kind of unfathomable.

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Seven Canadian dollars for a bag of chips (the small kind). $17.75 for fried pickles. A cool $25.25 for chicken tenders and fries. Another $14.75 for a vegan hot dog. Charging almost $15 for vegan anything should be a crime.

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A sign showing concession prices at Toronto Stadium for the World Cup.Credit: Scott Stinson/Postmedia Photo by Scott Stinson /National Post

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Fancy a drink? It is seven dollars for a bottle of water. Nine for a bottle of Coke. It is $16.75 for a (tall) can of beer. A “specialty cocktail” will run you $25. Despite the price, the specialty part is not that you get the whole bottle for that amount. A glass of wine, nine ounces, sells for $26.25. But the wine is made from grapes harvested from Gianni infantino’s private reserve, on the FIFA president’s estate in Tuscany. (Just kidding. It’s run-of-the-mill stuff.)

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FIFA has said its concession pricing strategy is to keep them in line with local markets, which is why stuff is cheaper in Guadalajara than Boston or Toronto. But the thing that makes these prices seem particularly unreasonable is that FIFA has already used this tournament to fleece football fans from all over the world out of huge amounts of money. As has already been well documented by this point, the ticket prices are incredibly high, and have been denounced as a “betrayal” of supporters by groups across Europe and South America. Four-digit prices have been routine for high-profile games, and FIFA responded to the general outcry late last year by making a small number of tickets available to supporters’ groups for less than $100.

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While FIFA is a non-profit that uses the World Cup to fund the rest of its activities in any quadrennial, there have been reports that it is using this one to build its reserves like never before. The Athletic reported last year that FIFA had a combined surplus of US$1.1 billion after the four-cycle that ended with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. That same report said FIFA’s budgeted revenues for this cycle are US$13 billion, a 72 per cent increase from the last one, fuelled in part by all the money it is extracting from match-going fans.