England's Tampa warm-up faces 50,000 empty seats as ticket sales stall

England’s pre-World Cup friendly against New Zealand at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on June 6 is on course to be played in front of roughly 50,000 empty seats, with just 13,000 tickets sold for the 69,000-capacity venue and only 1,500 official England Supporters Travel Club members confirmed to attend.

The cheapest tickets for the match — the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — have been priced at £54, a figure the FA considers reasonable. But the broader financial burden of attending the 2025 World Cup across North America appears to be deterring supporters from committing to warm-up fixtures. The FA accepts that costs have soared and is understood not to be surprised that the third-party operator tasked with selling tickets in Florida is struggling, having hoped to attract both travelling England fans and those already living in the state.

The contrast with England’s second warm-up is stark. Their June fixture against Costa Rica at the 25,500-seat Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando is close to selling out. Florida is home to one of the largest and fastest-growing Costa Rican communities in the United States, accounting for roughly 16 per cent of the country’s total Costa Rican population, and that local demand has driven ticket uptake.

Thomas Tuchel’s side open their tournament proper against Croatia on June 17, before facing Ghana and Panama in the group stage. FIFA has reported that approximately five million of the six million tickets available across the tournament’s 104 matches have been sold.

The governing body is also facing official scrutiny over its ticketing practices. Authorities in New York and New Jersey are investigating FIFA’s use of so-called dynamic pricing, which pushed the cheapest resale tickets for England’s opening game against Croatia in Texas to $898 (£628) on FIFA’s own resale platform in April. Further complaints allege that fans were misled about the category of ticket they were purchasing, with some receiving a lower tier than they believed they had bought.