Dr. Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen
Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Politics with Sociology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Jan’s research explores different political and social issues in sport, including football supporter cultures, social control and the regulation of football fandom. His most recent book is Sport, Activism, and Social Movements (Routledge, 2026, co-edited with Mark Turner).
Commonly, the story of the football World Cup as told through several 1990s and 2000s movies, fanzines and fans’ travelogues proceeds with a similar kind of storyline: a semi-spontaneous trip to a host country, some last-minute accommodation arrangements, a loose itinerary, match tickets still to be sourced, and, crucially, euphoric celebratory pre- or post-match scenes. Unsurprisingly, the World Cup is commonly viewed both as an expression and site of festivity and the carnivalesque. The tournament, and specifically its fan festivals, are spaces where football fans come, in FIFA’s own words, not just to watch the event, but to “celebrate, feel, and share” it.
As scholars highlight, international football mega-events – much like a Bakhtinian carnival – represent a suspension of everyday life: a transgression of norms, characterised by collective behaviours, humour, spontaneity and sociability. Glimpses of this became apparent in the images of Mexican supporters celebrating their team’s first goal of the tournament. They became apparent as Scotland’s “Tartan Army” celebrated their team’s 1-0 win against Haiti, and when the Norwegian fans – in Boston, Dallas, Miami, New Jersey and at Times Square – performed their viral “Viking row” chant. In stadiums, fan zones and throughout host cities, the waving of flags, banners, chanting and drinking were omnipresent. Indeed, when the TV cameras zoom in on the World Cup crowds during the hydration breaks or other breaks in the play, it always appears, as Jonathan Liew remarks, that “[e]veryone is dancing and putting their thumbs up”. “Nobody”, Liew continues, “is having a bad time”.
On the one hand, the contemporary World Cup “carnival” represents a break from the ordinariness, order and structures of the everyday. On the other, it must be emphasized this carnival also remains a highly regulated affair, shaped by overlapping processes of social and commercial control. Recognizing what lies beneath the carnivalesque therefore becomes imperative.
For instance, in host cities, the carnival’s official spaces are, as scholars note, carefully designed into a “commercially useful environment” for FIFA’s official partners. So-called “Clean Zones” are required by the event owner in the name of sponsor protection, and shape the conditions in which the carnival occurs, in the fan zones or stadiums. As is the norm for present-day sport mega-events, items considered to be “political” were prohibited in the World Cup stadiums’ “code of conduct”. After initially banning fans from carrying reusable water bottles, FIFA eventually made the decision to allow fans to carry one factory-sealed soft plastic bottle into stadiums. This, and the digital tickets and the smartphone Fan ID app, similarly illustrate how processes of control, regulation, and order are deeply embedded in almost every step of the carnival, and its proceedings.
Beyond these socio-spatial mechanisms, the ticketing processes and ticket prices illustrated a new chapter in “modern football”, whereby neoliberal rationalities, seemingly, were no longer concealed but more actively centralized and signposted. For the 2026 World Cup, FIFA employed dynamic pricing, so that ticket prices were adjusted according to demand. Pre-event, The Guardian reported that the average ticket price for a World Cup game had gone above $1,000, despite a price floor at around $60 per ticket. Indeed, some seats for the final went on sale for $32,970. The current ticketing model, as Beissel and Davis write, also prioritized “[p]remium experiences and hospitality packages”, and so, access to the World Cup, they suggest, was largely determined by supporters’ “financial capacity to navigate increasingly expensive and volatile ticket markets”. Away from the stadium, the planned $150 train tickets – from New York to MetLife Stadium, New Jersey – were, following backlash, reduced to $98; still considerably more than the usual $12.90 fare. Essentially, the contemporary fan carnival cannot be disassociated from wider questions about access, exclusion and pricing.
Unsurprisingly, some supporters dubbed the World Cup the “most inaccessible [tournament] there’s ever been”. Other fans described the prices of tickets and stadium transport as “completely out of the norm”. In March 2026, fan organisation Football Supporters Europe – teaming up with Euroconsumers – even filed a complaint with the European Commission, against FIFA, over “excessive ticket prices and opaque and unfair purchasing conditions”. When justifying the rising face-value price of tickets FIFA president Gianni Infantino pointed towards market forces. He emphasised that football is in the entertainment industry, and so, must apply market rates, claiming that tickets for less than $300 could not even be found in US college sports.
Overall, the 2026 World Cup expressed certain new dynamics of “modern football” as its neoliberal expanding logic was more openly signposted through the tournament’s structure (more teams more games, more tickets), market-based references and justifications, and few suggestions that commercial interests would – in any near future – become secondary to supporters’ experiences and affordability.
One significant consequence of this, therefore, is not the full-scale disappearance of a carnival. Instead, the football fan carnival requires a reimagining, as it becomes ever more inaccessible to “ordinary” fans and host city residents, and participation is ever more defined by who possess the purchasing power to be there in the first place.
