Wales fans could get just 2000 tickets for each of the World Cup 2022 group games

Wales could get just 2000 tickets for each of the World Cup 2022 group games in Qatar in November.

The team qualified for its first World Cup in 64 years after defeating Ukraine in their final qualifying play-off in Cardiff on Sunday.

Demand for tickets will be high amongst The Red Wall, despite the Qatar World Cup being the most expensive to date.

The final of the tournament is due to take place at the Lusail Stadium on 18th December and the most expensive ticket for that game is 5,850 Qatari riyals ($1,607), a 46% increase from the $1,100 for the 2018 final in Russia.

The cheapest seats on general sale internationally to watch the opening game of the tournament are up 37% to $302 (1,100 Qatari riyals) from $220 seen in Russia. Similarly, there’s a rise of 13% for category-two tickets to $440 (1,600 Qatari riyals) from $390.

“This means following Wales through the tournament will prove prohibitively expensive for many ordinary match-going fans, especially when coupled with travel and high day-to-day living costs in Qatar.” The Football Supporters’ Association has said.

Wales kick off their campaign against the USA on November 21 at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Rayyan.

The stadium – which is just 14km from Doha, the capital of Qatar – will have a capacity of 40,000 fans for the World Cup.

For those who can afford it, getting a ticket may prove tricky, Noel Mooney, Chief Executive of the Football Association of Wales (FAW) has said that FIFA ‘protocols’ mean Wales will be allocated just 5% of the stadium capacity.

Noel Mooney, Chief Executive of the Football Association of Wales | Photo: FAW

Speaking to BBC Wales this morning, Mooney, a former Head of Strategic Development at UEFA, said: “The way it works with the FIFA protocols is that we only get about 5% of the stadium.”

“Which I think it’s a 40,000 (capacity) stadium, so 5% of that is not a whole lot.”

He said: “We’ll have to work with FIFA and other angles to try and get as many tickets as we can for our supporters.”

“You’d hope going to Qatar, we’d get a few thousand for each of the matches, we’ve got a huge membership, on Sunday we had 32,000 people in the (Cardiff City Stadium) stadium, it was a record crowd for us.

Mooney said, “There’s a huge demand, we can feed it everywhere, whether it’s from supporters, whether it’s from companies and different sets of partners contacting us over the last few hours and days, who want to be part of this special journey that Cymru are on.

With just 10% of tickets going to the football federations of the teams competing in a match, Mooney was asked where do the other 90% of tickets for each match go.

He said: “I worked at UEFA for 10 years and it’s a similar process to that we had with the Euros, a number amount of tickets go to the people from the region.”

“Part of the reason you award a Euros or Worl Cup to a country is to promote football in that region.”

“So in the Middle East, which is not just Qatar, it’s the countries around, of course, they want as many locals to get to the games as well, so that’s one part of it.”

“What I would also say is that FIFA has huge commitments in terms of the other national associations, the ones that aren’t playing because it’s part of the celebration of football, there are 211 associations in world football.”

Mooney said FIFA also has large commitments to sponsors and media partners who, “snap up the tickets.”

On pricing, Mooney said: “I haven’t studied fully all of the pricing just yet, we’re going through that furiously now over this early part of this week.”

“I saw some pricing for the final and a category one ticket for the World Cup final sounds off the Richter scale to me.”

He said the price of tickets “seem a lot, we’re working through that, we’re liaising with FIFA every hour at this stage to get all of our details.”

“We’ll put out official information later this week which will have travelled, how to get there, we’ve got travel partners and we’re working with to put packages together.”

He said: Let’s hope we come out the other side of it with our fans happy at the arrangements we will put in place.”

Mooney added: “It is particularly challenging for us, especially being the last ones to qualify, there are 31 countries that have had time to do stuff before us, we’re coming in late to the party.”

Wales FIFA World Cup Group B Fixtures (KO GMT)

All matches will be played at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium.

[Fans photo: FAW]