Illustration: FootyGazette (AI-generated concept).
6 min read · 1,313 words
The short version. For the 2026 World Cup, disabled fans face the most expensive accessible tickets in tournament history, and they must buy a second seat for a personal assistant. Yet FIFA only promises companions will sit “as close as possible” — not beside them. Pay double, and the assistance you paid for might still be a row away.
Search “world cup 2026 accessible seating companion seat” and you arrive at a quiet scandal hiding inside the world’s biggest sporting event. The headline numbers are bad enough: disabled supporters are paying many times what their counterparts paid in Qatar. But the deeper problem is structural. A disabled fan who needs a personal assistant (PA) to attend a match must now purchase that assistant a full second ticket — and even after paying twice, FIFA does not guarantee the two of them will sit together. For someone who relies on help with medication, transfers, communication or orientation throughout ninety minutes, a companion seated a row away is not a companion at all.
This is the companion-seat trap, and it runs through the entire 2026 ticketing model across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The tournament — 48 teams, 104 matches, running 11 June to 19 July 2026 and ending at MetLife Stadium — has been sold as the most inclusive ever. For disabled fans, the maths and the policy tell a different story.
What the numbers actually show
The Football Supporters’ Association has laid out figures that are hard to read without wincing. As it details in its analysis showing the 2026 World Cup is up to 38 times more expensive than Qatar for disabled fans, the cheapest accessible group-stage tickets land somewhere between $140 and $450. The cheapest accessible seat for the final reaches $4,180. And crucially, personal assistants and companions must buy their own ticket, effectively doubling the outlay for any disabled fan who cannot attend alone.
The contrast with Qatar 2022 is the part that stings. There, group-stage tickets started at roughly $10 — and that ticket included a free companion ticket for the disabled fan’s assistant. The same access that was treated as a baseline right four years ago has, in 2026, been turned into a line item billed at full price, and sometimes several times over.
The companion-seat trap: paying double for a service that may not function
Here is the original argument, and it is the one the news write-ups dance around: FIFA has converted accessibility from a right into a premium product — and then failed to guarantee the product works. Consider the logic of a personal-assistant seat. The entire reason a PA exists is to sit beside the disabled fan and provide help during the match. That is the function. That is the only reason the second ticket is being sold. Strip the adjacency away and you are no longer selling assistance; you are selling an adjacent-ish hope.
FIFA’s own language gives the game away. Companions, it says, will be placed “as close as possible” — a phrase that guarantees nothing about being in the next seat. As Level Playing Field has set out in its accessibility concerns for 2026, allocation numbers and the precise positioning of personal assistants remain uncertain. So the disabled fan is asked to pay twice — once for their own accessible seat, once for the assistant’s full-price ticket — for a service whose core feature, proximity, is explicitly not promised. You can be charged double for help and still be left without it. That is not a pricing quirk; it is a moral inversion. Access stops being something a tournament owes its disabled supporters and becomes something they must purchase, at a premium, with no warranty that it will be delivered. When the people who need assistance most are the ones charged most and protected least, the policy has stopped serving fans and started extracting from them.
Why advocates are calling it profiteering
The reaction from disability-football groups has been blunt. The Football Ground Guide reports that 2026 has left fans with disabilities excluded amid what it calls FIFA’s “aggressive profiteering” — language that lands harder when you remember accessible seating is not a luxury tier but a necessity for the people buying it. You cannot choose a cheaper non-accessible seat when accessibility is the reason you can attend at all.
That criticism has spread beyond the specialist outlets. Industry coverage notes that FIFA faces a growing backlash over accessible seating at the World Cup, with the combination of dynamic pricing and the companion-ticket policy drawing particular anger. The pricing structure here does not sit on its own — it is part of the same machinery driving the wider dynamic-pricing controversy, and it interacts with how the seat categories work in ways that leave disabled fans with the fewest genuine choices.
What disabled fans can do right now
None of this is the fan’s fault, but until policy shifts there are practical steps worth taking:
- Get the adjacency in writing. When you book, ask FIFA’s ticketing support to confirm in writing that your personal assistant will be seated immediately beside you — not “nearby”. Keep the reference number and the reply.
- Document your access requirements early. Specify what assistance you need during play (medication, transfers, communication support) so there is a paper trail showing why adjacency is essential, not optional.
- Lean on the advocacy groups. Level Playing Field and the Football Supporters’ Association are actively tracking these cases; reporting your experience strengthens their pressure on FIFA and can help escalate individual problems.
- Keep every receipt. If you pay for a companion seat and are then seated apart, those records are the evidence for a refund claim or complaint.
- Check resale and category rules carefully. Because accessible inventory is limited and positioning uncertain, understand the rules before committing — and read up on the wider ticketing system in our complete guide to the 2026 World Cup.
What genuine accessibility would look like
It is worth being concrete about the alternative, because “do better” is too easy to wave away. Genuine accessibility at a World Cup is not complicated; it has been done. It means a guaranteed adjacent seat for a personal assistant, written into the ticket rather than left to match-day chance. It means a companion ticket priced at a steep discount or, as in Qatar, included — recognising that the assistant is not a spectator buying a luxury but a necessary part of one fan’s access. And it means publishing the accessible allocation and the sightline policy up front, so a disabled supporter can make an informed choice instead of gambling a four-figure sum on the word “nearby”.
None of that costs FIFA its commercial model; it simply declines to treat disabled fans as a revenue stream to be optimised. The fact that 2022 cleared this bar and 2026 does not is the clearest possible evidence that the regression is a choice, not a constraint. A tournament that can engineer dynamic pricing to the cent can certainly engineer two seats next to each other.
Frequently asked questions
Does World Cup 2026 accessible seating guarantee a companion seat next to the disabled fan?
No. FIFA says companions and personal assistants will be placed “as close as possible,” but it does not guarantee an adjacent seat. For a fan who needs help throughout the match, a non-adjacent companion seat means the assistance they paid a second full-price ticket for may not actually function during play.
How much more expensive are accessible tickets in 2026 compared with Qatar 2022?
Up to 38 times more, according to the Football Supporters’ Association. Cheapest accessible group-stage seats run roughly $140–$450 and the cheapest accessible final ticket reaches $4,180. At Qatar 2022, group tickets started near $10 and included a free companion ticket — which 2026 no longer does.
Do personal assistants have to buy their own World Cup 2026 ticket?
Yes. Unlike Qatar 2022, where a disabled fan’s ticket included a free companion ticket, the 2026 model requires the personal assistant to purchase a separate full-price ticket. This effectively doubles the cost of attending for any disabled supporter who cannot safely attend a match alone.
