With this week's play-offs completing qualification for the men's football World Cup, we now know which 48 teams will be heading to Mexico, Canada and the US in summer –but it remains to be seen how many fans will follow them. 

On Tuesday, bars across the football-loving city of Munich were packed with fans watching the final play-offs. Germany qualified back in November, but fans flocked to watch Türkiye squeeze past Kosovo and Sweden beat Poland, not to mention two games decided on penalty shootouts as Czechia beat Denmark and Italy lost to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Despite all the excitement, many of the engrossed viewers told CGTN they wouldn't be flying west in summer to attend the finals – despite governing body FIFA launching a 'last-minute sales phase' for remaining tickets.

"Seeing that World Cup, the prices are insane and I wouldn't spend that much for a football game," said Maxi. With 'dynamic pricing' in place during Wednesday's reopened ticket sales, the top price for the World Cup final itself hit $10,990, while early-round tickets were typically above $2,000. The very cheapest tickets, at $140, sold out months ago.

"If I had the money, I would have gladly done it," said Enver Junko. "The next issue is this problem in the world right now; we don't know if it's all worth it, if it's all even happening."

"On the one hand, I naturally want to hear the voices at the football matches, but I also don't want a huge amount of organizational drama surrounding it," said Marcel Meister. 

"No, I wouldn't go to the US for the World Cup because the United States are not really a continent of football," said Niclas Wilker. "The whole event won't be that fun in the US, so I wouldn't go there."

'A scary proposition' 

The doubts of many fans are being echoed by industry experts.

"You talk to normal fans in Germany and they'll be scared by the ticket prices," said German football correspondent Mark Lovell, before moving on to a wider geopolitical point.

"Traveling to America used to be like a normal thing, but you've got the whole immigration thing going on there with ICE, and America's involved in a war. That's unique in itself – a pretty scary proposition."

Held every four years, the World Cup is one of sport's biggest events, perhaps comparable only to the Olympics. The 1994 World Cup, held in the US, sold more than 3.5 million tickets – and that was with only 24 rather than 48 teams. 

FIFA says nearly two million tickets for 2026 were sold in the first two sales phases, driven largely by residents of the host nations. And with 40 more games, expectations have been high – but that might not be the case, said Lovell.

"Not convinced that FIFA will tell you the whole story," he said. "They will say that demand is strong and in line with previous tournaments, if not better – but it's hard to get overly excited right now."

With many choosing to sit this World Cup out, the real winners could be local sports bars and pubs around the world.