The head of fan group Football Supporters Europe has warned that a lack of fan segregation at the 2026 World Cup shows Fifa has "lost control of their ticketing", as thousands of Argentina supporters descended on Kansas City without match tickets and turned a city park into a little corner of Buenos Aires.
Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, told BBC Sport from Dallas that the absence of segregation at most group games is "not normal for a tournament like this". He said: "What is worrying is that Fifa doesn't really know who has tickets here and there... by pushing so much for people to buy tickets and re-sell them. So the possibility - or the risk - to have fans from 'Team A' in the middle of the crowd of 'Team B' is stronger than ever before."
“Fifa's lack of fan segregation at the World Cup shows it has lost ticketing control, warns fans' chief.”
His comments came after BBC Sport saw pockets of Dutch and Japanese fans mixed together during their match in Dallas on Sunday. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, thousands of Argentina fans had arrived early ahead of their opening game against Algeria, filling Mill Creek Park with blue and white flags and posters. The Mirror reported a "bouncing bomb of blue and white supporters" singing lyrics including: "The fans of Argentina are crazy, they go here, they go there, you find them everywhere."
Among them was Juan Zolochowski, from Quilmes near Buenos Aires, who drove 1,701 miles from Miami in a White Cruise America Recreational Vehicle festooned with Argentine flags. He took 45 days off work to follow his team across America, along with his friend's family, including his mum, dad and girlfriend. Not one of them has a ticket. As Juan said about Dallas: "It is an 80,000-seat stadium and tickets are $1,000." He has paid about $100 a day for the five-bed RV, which will carry them to Dallas for Argentina's subsequent group games against Austria and Jordan.
Evain also raised concerns that some fans were prevented from bringing flags into the Dallas Stadium at Sunday's match, calling it "inconsistent with most Fifa rules and regulations". He added: "Most of the flags were removed by the staff. The broader problem - and I think it's a demonstration of how much Fifa has little control over this tournament - is that there's no consistent rule."
Fifa sources referred BBC Sport to the fact that ring-fenced allocations include tickets reserved for supporters of the Participating Member Associations, who are allocated 8% of the tickets for each match, in line with previous tournaments. But Evain warned: "There's so many tickets on the resale platforms - Fifa has zero control with what's happening with these tickets. It's hard to tell what will be the behaviour of the people that control these tickets."
The Dallas stadium will host England's opening game against Croatia on Wednesday, as the tournament's ticketing chaos continues to unfold.