Football’s global governing body FIFA said Wednesday it had received more than 500 million requests for tickets to this year’s World Cup despite rumbling controversy over sky-high prices to attend the event.

FIFA said in a statement it had received applications from fans in all of its 211 member nations and territories for the tournament staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The window for submitting requests to be entered in a lottery which will allocate tickets closed on Tuesday. FIFA said fans would be notified of whether their requests had been successful “no earlier than 5 February.”

Outside of the tournament’s host nations, FIFA said the heaviest demand came from fans in Germany, England, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Colombia.

The most requested ticket was Colombia’s clash with Portugal in Miami on June 27, followed by Mexico’s game against South Korea in Guadalajara on June 18, and the World Cup final in New Jersey on July 19.

“Half a billion ticket requests in just over a month is more than demand – it’s a global statement,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said. “I would like to thank and congratulate football fans everywhere for this extraordinary response.”

“Knowing how much this tournament means to people around the world, our only regret is that we cannot welcome every fan inside the stadiums.”

FIFA has faced sharp criticism over its ticket pricing strategy for the 48-team tournament, with fan groups branding the cost as “extortionate” and “astronomical.”

Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said ticket prices were almost five times higher than at the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

Those criticisms prompted FIFA to introduce a new category of cut-price tickets in December set at 60 US dollars (51 euros) each.

The NCAA asked a federal regulatory body Wednesday to stop prediction markets from offering trades on college sports until more safeguards are in place.

In a letter addressed to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the growth of prediction markets poses a threat to the well-being of student-athletes as well as the integrity of competition.

“I implore you to suspend collegiate sport prediction markets until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place,” Baker wrote.

Baker identified several areas where he believes prediction markets need additional safeguards: age restrictions, advertising restrictions, robust integrity monitoring, the involvement of national governing bodies such as the NCAA, restrictions on prop bets, harm reduction resources and anti-harassment measures.

Kalshi, a leading prediction market company, uses IC360, a firm that monitors the betting market for irregularities and works with sports leagues, including the NCAA. Baker acknowledged that some prediction markets monitor for integrity concerns but said “heightened levels of review that don’t exist in many prediction markets” are needed, such as tracing the geolocation of bettors. He also said prediction market operators are not required to report integrity concerns to other operators through an intermediary — a requirement for sportsbooks in most states.

He added that the NCAA is willing to work with the CFTC to develop these protections, which exist for legal sportsbooks.

ESPN has reached out to the CFTC and the Coalition for Prediction Markets, which represents many of the largest operators, for comment.

Baker also discussed the request in a speech Wednesday at the 2026 NCAA Convention.

“So-called prediction markets are offering what anyone can see is unregulated betting on college games,” he said. “We need federal regulators to stabilize this market.”

In his speech, Baker referenced the steps Kalshi had taken to offer markets on the transfer portal as an example of why the NCAA needs federal intervention. In December, Kalshi notified the CFTC that it was self-certifying markets on whether college athletes would enter the transfer portal. Though Kalshi said it has no immediate plans to begin offering trading on the portal, the decision drew sharp criticism from the NCAA.

Prediction markets, which allow users to trade on the yes/no outcome of events, including sports, have increased in popularity over the past year. While traditional sportsbooks operate in 39 states and the District of Columbia, where the betting age is usually 21, prediction markets are available in all 50 states to users 18 and older.

Oversight of prediction markets is a hotly contested legal issue. State gambling regulators, which oversee traditional sportsbooks, are locked in legal battles in multiple states with leading prediction market companies.

Those companies say they are not sportsbooks because users are not going up against the house but instead trading contracts with other users on the opposite side of the proposition. While bookmakers charge a vig, or commission, on losing wagers, prediction markets make money from a transaction fee, similar to a broker, and have no stake in the result.

Major sports leagues have so far been split on the question of prediction markets. The NFL has expressed its concern about the industry’s rise to Congress, while the NHL and UFC have inked deals with Kalshi and prediction market company Polymarket.