January 05, 2026
Yukihito Taguchi/Imagn Images
Verizon customers will have a chance this week to score tickets to two World Cup matches in Philadelphia, including Croatia vs. Ghana on June 27. Above, Luka Modric, center, and his Croatian teammates celebrate their third-place finish in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Soccer fans with dreams of watching a World Cup match live in Philly are confronting expensive prices and FIFA's highly competitive ticketing process. But Verizon is offering a chance to go to soccer's international showcase for free with an upcoming giveaway.
At 3 p.m. Friday, the company said it will make "hundreds" of tickets available (an exact amount is unknown) for the Brazil vs. Haiti match on June 19 and the Croatia vs. Ghana match on June 27 on a first-come, first-serve basis in the My Verizon app.
Participants have to be a member of Verizon Access, the company's loyalty program, to qualify. The offer is part of a larger promotion, as Verizon will be releasing tickets to World Cup matches in all U.S. host cities from Jan. 7-11 at 3 p.m. daily.
Last month, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the governing body received more than 150 million ticket requests in the first 15 days of its latest lottery — 30 times more than the supply. In total, there are 7 million tickets for 104 matches in Mexico, Canada and the Unites States, and 2 million were already sold in the first two rounds of sales.
That strong demand comes despite the high cost to attend. The most inexpensive tickets to the six matches in Philadelphia range from $140 to $265. Four Category 3 tickets, the lowest tier, to all six games in Philly would cost more than $5,000. That's a huge increase from the 2022 World Cup, which was hosted in Qatar, where tickets ranged from $11 to just over $200, NPR reported.
Last month, Infantino defended the high prices, pointing to the surge in demand. Following backlash, FIFA created a $60 ticket tier that's available to a select group of superfans.
