Tickets for this summer’s soccer World Cup are the most expensive in the tournament’s history. Or the history of any sporting event for that matter, with the possible exception of one-off extravaganzas like the Mayweather-Pacquiao showdown in 2015. The face value of tickets at this American tournament are a staggering five times higher that of the previous World Cup in Qatar. The most expensive seats for the final match have reached wallet-busting levels, affordable only to plutocrats and corporate boondogglers.

And that’s just face value. What about the quaintly named secondary market? I occasionally peruse Fifa’s resale site, where the custodians of the game double dip from the buyer and seller to act as an official tout. I check the Fifa marketplace not as a prospective purchaser, but from an anthropological standpoint, mesmerized by the insatiable human greed on display. We really have left the Earth’s orbit and are in Artemis 2 levels of stratospheric pricing here. One ticket for the Final was listed at $250,000. It’s almost enough to make one a Mamdani supporter.

Many people have washed their hands of the whole idea of attending, and the ill-will it has generated is considerable. This must be the first time in history where the manager of a competing team (the frugal Steve Clarke of Scotland) has told supporters to stay home and watch the games on TV.

All of this makes me nostalgic for past World Cups (I’ve attended two, in 1998 and 2002). Prices were fixed and reasonable – $30 to $50 for first round games in France – and the whole touting business was spontaneous, face-to-face, fan-to-fan and almost fun. I achieved the Holy Grail outside the Tokyo International Forum in 2002: a ticket for the final, purchased from a lovestruck Brazilian who wanted to watch the game with his newly acquired Danish girlfriend but only had one ticket. He decided it was better to watch it on TV with her, rather than go to the game alone. I relived him of the ticket for 100,000 yen ($600) only about $100 premium.

Those days are seemingly long gone. Donald Trump and Fifa boss Gianni Infantino have formed something of a duopoly. Infantino has proved himself a master at schmoozing, even presenting Trump with a Fifa peace prize. Meanwhile, the ticketing company LiveNation’s has reached a deal with the Justice Department, which leaves them free to feast on the World Cup’s bounty. The MAGA promise of trust busting the ticket touts seems to have died. The result is that the ticketing industrial complex is alive and well at this summer’s tournament.

Things are so bad that some fans are threatening legal action, alleging that stadium maps have been doctored and their supposed Category A tickets are actually in Category B areas. The latest wheeze is the sudden appearance of a new ticketing category “Front Category A,” costing up to three times the previously listed price in areas where basic Category A ticket holders assumed they might be seated. Meanwhile, Fifa has declined to reveal how many tickets are unsold or how many fans were given access to the pre-sales. The relentless secrecy is fueling suspicion, resentment, and real anger. Expect #boycottFIFA to trend any day.

It is so shameless and wanton you could almost admire it, if only Fifa were honest and stopped wittering on about the “people’s game,” the “football family,” and, God help us, their role as a global peace-maker. Stop lying about so-called “affordable tickets” (largely illusory) and declare the World Cup a gross, filthy lucre-generating exercise. Make an anthropomorphic dollar bill the mascot and replace Shakira and Celine Dion in the opening ceremony with the reformed ABBA (“Money, Money, Money”).

Putting my despair to one side, is there any hope for the beleaguered ordinary fans seeking even halfway sane pricing? Well, maybe… all may not be quite what it appears. As well as the most expensive, the ticketing system for this summer’s World Cup is also by far the most opaque with a bewildering series of ticket classes, sales ‘windows’, and purchasing methods. You need to be alert and nimble-witted to keep track of what’s available, when, and for how much, in Fifa’s labyrinthine, and ever-changing, website. And you would be well advised to take the pronouncements of Fifa president Gianni Infantino with a grain of salt.

According to Infantino, Fifa sales have been extraordinarily successful with “every game sold out” and “over 500 million ticketing requests.” But that being the case, why did Fifa suddenly announce an additional “surprise” sales phase on April 1? And why are some games, including the USA’s opener, struggling to sell out?

The truth is almost certainly that the unprecedented demand is real, but only for a portion of the bloated tournament’s 104 games. The knockout phase, which begins on June 28 and includes the juicier of the first round ties such as those involving England, Brazil and Lionel Messi – sorry Argentina. For the other World Cup, the less glamorous games involving Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Iraq, and Curaçao? Not so much…

Why are some games, including the USA’s opener, struggling to sell out?

Even some seemingly attractive fixtures may be struggling as the tickets have been “drastically mispriced” in the words of Scott Friedman of the Ticket Talk show. As Henry Bushnell, writing in the Athletic, noted, tickets for USA vs Paraguay, the primary host’s opener, were plentiful throughout the extra sales phase, without even being tagged with the usual marketing gambit of “selling out fast” or “last few tickets.” The reason isn’t hard to divine: prices of up to $3,000, three times that of the USA’s second and third games.

It seems likely that Fifa still has considerable inventory available, and it will be interesting to see how they try and shift it. Clues can be found in last year’s Club World Cup, where the much vaunted “dynamic pricing” worked in the favor of unenthused fans who were able to snap up tickets for as little as $13 on the day (many tickets were available for 16 percent of their original price). And if, as is customary in US sport, many of the tickets for the big games were hoovered up by bots, expect a steady stream of availability up to kick-off. Fans that hold their nerve and treat the initial eye-watering mark-ups as Trumpian art of the deal bravado may yet get in without breaking the bank.

Even so, there will almost certainly be embarrassing gaps in the stands (Jordan vs Algeria anyone?). Witness the Congo vs Jamaica play-off game last month, which may serve as a preview. This was a genuinely consequential, even potentially historic game (Congo had never qualified) played in an attractive custom-built soccer stadium and with tickets priced at a reasonable – even nostalgic – $11 to $17. The official attendance was 36,000 in a 50,000-seat ground, so well short of a sell-out.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see similar percentages this summer for many of the 72 first-round matches. Hopefully, Gianni Infantino will be in attendance to witness banks of empty seats around him. His face would be, in a word, priceless.