This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Worchihan Zingkhai, 40, a content creator from a village in Manipur, India. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve loved football for as long as I can remember.
Growing up in a village in Manipur, in northeast India, football is everywhere. We don’t have proper equipment, so we make footballs out of plastic and old clothes rolled into a ball.
I can still remember staying awake until 3 a.m. to watch my first World Cup in 1998. We had one black-and-white TV for the entire village, and we pooled money to buy fuel for a generator to power it.
Since then, I’ve watched every World Cup on television. I became a fan of Portugal and later followed the Premier League. However, attending a World Cup match in person always felt impossible.
Now, nearly 30 years later, I’m finally going.
The laptop will have to wait
Courtesy of Worchihan Zingkhai
Making this trip requires a lot more than buying a match ticket.
My village sits about 5,600 feet above sea level, and there isn’t an airport nearby. I’ll drive about six hours to Imphal before flying to New Delhi, London, Washington, DC, and finally Atlanta. The trip includes four flights and about 27 hours in the air.
The journey would have been much harder without help from my wife’s family. My father-in-law paid for our flights from New Delhi to Washington, DC, and my in-laws are helping with accommodations in the US. Having family there has made the trip much more affordable.
Even with that support, I’ve had to make sacrifices financially.
I’m a content creator who makes videos for YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. This year, I planned to buy a new laptop for video editing. I was looking at models that cost between $2,200 and $2,500.
Courtesy of Worchihan Zingkhai
However, I couldn’t afford both the laptop and the World Cup trip, so the laptop will have to wait.
In my area, people often earn about 500 rupees a day, or roughly $5 to $6. Because of that, we’re very careful about spending. My family has cut back on other purchases and avoided additional trips to help make this World Cup journey possible.
I missed my first chance at tickets
Getting a World Cup ticket was harder than I expected.
I entered FIFA’s ticket sale in February with a budget of $350 per ticket. My dream was to watch Portugal, England, or Argentina.
When I finally got into the system, I had only 15 minutes to buy. The Portugal tickets I wanted were priced between $450 and $650, which was beyond my budget. I spent too much time comparing options and eventually lost my chance.
I thought that was the end of my chance at the World Cup.
Courtesy of Worchihan Zingkhai
I was able to buy tickets in April. This time, I focused on finding a match I could afford instead of chasing the teams I wanted to see most. After waiting in the queue for several hours, I finally got in and bought two category-three tickets for Czech Republic versus South Africa in Atlanta for $140 each — one for me and one for my father-in-law.
High ticket prices make it harder for fans
I understand why demand for the World Cup is so high. Still, I think ticket prices are difficult for ordinary fans.
What frustrates me most is the resale market.
I paid $140 for my ticket. A few weeks later, I checked the resale platform and saw nearby seats listed for about $560.
As a football fan, that’s disappointing.
People who genuinely want to attend have a short window to buy tickets, but resellers have much more time to profit from them. I believe some people purchase tickets mainly to resell them rather than attend matches themselves.
For fans like me, that makes an already expensive event even harder to reach.