StubHub is getting a red card from some World Cup fans
Two World Cup customers are suing the New York-based ticket-selling company, alleging “false and misleading” advertising that left them without tickets or a refund for the World Cup games they paid to attend.
In federal court in New York last week, two Californians — Julia Reeker Moghal and Reuben Renteria — sued StubHub seeking monetary damages and a ban on the company selling World Cup tickets. The lawsuit aims to become a class action and comes after weeks of fierce criticism and complaints from customers regarding the company’s practices.
Throughout the World Cup, videos have emerged on Instagram and TikTok of StubHub customers describing their nightmare experiences with the ticket-selling platform.
Some said they had purchased tickets to World Cup games as early as November of last year, booked flights and hotels and arranged travel plans, then StubHub notified them days to weeks before the match of a refund for their tickets, which they never requested.
There were similar complaints about last-minute cancellations from people who bought Coachella tickets on StubHub.
In the lawsuit, Moghal said she had purchased three tickets for nearly $2,000 for the June 18 match between Switzerland and Bosnia-Herzegovina at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which were then canceled by StubHub. Moghal said she was contacted by StubHub and told her tickets would remain canceled, then was later told the tickets would be available one hour before the game.
When the match began, Moghal said she was at SoFi Stadium, but the tickets never came.
Renteria said he paid around $2,300 for the June 18 Mexico versus South Korea match in Guadalajara, Mexico, but they were canceled
“Devoted soccer fans have traveled from around the world to attend World Cup matches — and they reasonably relied on StubHub to provide the tickets they paid for as well as on StubHub’s warranty,” Blake Hunter Yagman, the attorney representing the two, said in a statement. “Instead of rewarding their business, StubHub sold them World Cup tickets that they either could not provide or on speculation, only to be stranded, in many cases, at the stadium gates without any recourse.”
According to StubHub’s website, its Fan Protect Guarantee states the platform will deliver valid tickets or refund in the event of a ticket issue, and that it will “go out of our way to find replacement tickets” of a comparable value. The lawsuit alleges the replacement tickets many fans were given by StubHub were worse than their original tickets.
FIFA, the World Cup organizer, states in its terms and conditions that the FIFA Marketplace, its own ticket-selling platform, is the only authorized platform for World Cup tickets, and that only tickets purchased through it are guaranteed by FIFA to be valid.
Despite the risk of purchasing through a third-party platform such as StubHub, many fans opted to do so to avoid the 30% FIFA resale tax, believing that the Fan Protect Guarantee would safeguard their order.
Since World Cup tickets began selling on FIFA Marketplace last September, fans have expressed disappointment in the expensive price tag. FIFA utilized a dynamic pricing system for the sale, and as sales phases progressed leading up to the games, the cost of tickets increased tremendously. In March, the extreme cost of tickets prompted 69 members of Congress to write a letter to FIFA urging them to lower their prices.
Tickets for the upcoming Friday match between Spain and Belgium in Los Angeles are selling on StubHub for over $1,300.
StubHub said in various statements to the news and in legal proceedings that ticket cancellations were a result of transfer problems and issues with FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.
StubHub did not respond to requests for comment.
A FIFA spokesperson responded to this accusation in a statement, saying, “FIFA has no visibility over, or control of, secondary market ticket transactions carried out on third-party platforms. The transactions facilitated on these platforms occur entirely independently of FIFA’s official ticketing platform. With reference to the reliability of the services available to fans on FIFA’s official ticket platform, FIFA rejects any suggestion that the functional issues being experienced by users of third-party platforms with respect to FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets are the result of FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.”