Bina Ramroop expected a birthday memory inside the stadium. Instead, she ended up outside the gates, locked in a back-and-forth between ticketing companies as kickoff approached and her $485 seats never materialized.
Ramroop traveled to Atlanta Stadium on Monday with her grandson to watch Spain face Cape Verde in a World Cup match that finished in a scoreless draw. Hours before kickoff, she was still trying to resolve a ticket transfer issue between StubHub and FIFA’s official system. Each side pointed to the other as the source of the problem.
The tickets, purchased months earlier through StubHub, could not be transferred into FIFA’s required mobile app. As the crowd inside erupted for kickoff, Ramroop was offered a refund. She accepted it, not because she wanted out, but because there was no other option.
“I didn’t want a refund. I didn’t want my money back,” she said. “I wanted to go to the game.”
She is one of many fans reporting similar problems during the tournament, with complaints ranging from missing tickets to last-minute cancellations and failed transfers between FIFA’s platform and third-party resale sites. StubHub appears most frequently in the complaints, though SeatGeek and Vivid Seats users have also reported disruptions.
In some cases, the issues stem from technical breakdowns in ticket transfers between systems. In others, industry experts say the root problem may be speculative selling, where tickets are listed before they are secured. If prices rise closer to match day, sellers may struggle to fulfill orders and are forced into cancellations.
StubHub has rejected claims that sellers list tickets they do not possess and says it requires proof of ownership before listings go live. The company argues that FIFA’s late rollout of its ticketing app and last-minute transfer rules created additional friction, calling the infrastructure “poor” and the process unstable.
FIFA has maintained that tickets purchased through its official resale platform are guaranteed to work, and it has urged fans to avoid third-party marketplaces. Its system includes a 30 percent resale surcharge split between buyers and sellers.
For Ramroop, none of that mattered in the moment. She and her grandson, Elijah Gomes, eventually made a quiet train ride back to the suburbs as the match played on without them. He followed the score on his phone and tried to soften the blow.
“He’s telling me, ‘Grandma, it’s OK,’” she said. “And he’s trying to console me.”
They were far from alone. An Associated Press journalist observed more than a dozen fans outside the stadium describing similar ticket failures.
Pape Ndaw also learned how quickly plans can collapse. He bought tickets in December to take his son to see the Netherlands play Japan near Dallas as a graduation gift. Days before the match, he received an email saying the seller could not deliver.
Ndaw accepted store credit, hoping to secure replacements, but prices had surged beyond $1,500 per ticket. A later request for a refund was denied, he said. He eventually had to tell his son they would not be going.
“He cried,” Ndaw said. “He had told all his friends he was going.”
Not every case ended the same way. Patrick O’Neil of North Carolina traveled to Atlanta with family after buying five tickets. Only two arrived in time. The group split up, with some attending the match while others watched from a nearby bar.
After media coverage, StubHub offered the family tickets to another event. They declined and instead requested the seats be donated to a local nonprofit, Soccer in the Streets. StubHub agreed.
Industry observers say the broader issue is a mix of technology strain, policy gaps and market behavior that becomes more visible at major global events like the World Cup. While StubHub says such failures are rare, experts argue the scale exposes structural weaknesses.
Michael McCann, a sports law professor at the University of New Hampshire, noted that StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee gives the company discretion to issue refunds or replacements, a point that could complicate legal challenges from buyers.
