Why I Must Applaud Gianni Infantino for Finally Pricing the Vulgar Masses Out of the World Cup

It is a truth universally acknowledged among those of us who still maintain a subscription to the opera that the presence of the general public fundamentally degrades the aesthetic purity of any grand spectacle; one is reminded, inevitably, of the Hungarian formalist Bela Tarr's seven-hour cinematic opus Satantango, a work whose sheer, unrelenting hostility actively dares the unworthy viewer to abandon it. Yet, the unwashed masses and their chosen litigators seem incapable of grasping this elementary concept. As the 2026 World Cup commences in Mexico City and the United States, a chorus of philistines has taken to lambasting FIFA and its visionary president, Gianni Infantino, for ticket costs that run a mere four to ten times higher than the comparative alms collected during the 2022 Qatar tournament.

These detractors point to the $2,735 asking price for Friday's U.S. opener in Los Angeles, or the supposedly egregious $620 for seats closer to the field, as evidence of gouging, a distinctly middle-class complaint that betrays a profound misunderstanding of value. It is precisely the sort of structural gatekeeping Dante Alighieri envisioned in the Paradiso, wherein ascension toward the divine is predicated upon a strict, uncompromising hierarchy; one cannot simply wander into the Empyrean, nor should one expect to observe a men's group-stage match from the lower bowl for anything less than a mortgage payment. Infantino is not merely a sports administrator, but an auteur of deprivation, sculpting an environment where only those possessing both immense capital and questionable financial prudence may partake in the beautiful game.