Soccer fans sue StubHub over World Cup ticket fiasco
Soccer balls are displayed from the ceiling at the Lion Sports Bar on July 4, 2026, in Philadelphia. (Photo by Joe Lamberti/Getty Images)
With complaints piling up against StubHub over 2026 FIFA World Cup ticket fiascos, two California residents are suing the ticketing giant for allegedly failing to fulfill seat orders as promised and crushing the dreams of die-hard soccer fans.
In recent months, desperate fans have turned to ticket resale marketplaces like SeatGeek, Vivid Seats and StubHub for seats to the World Cup matches. However, some fans trying to buy tickets from StubHub have reported faulty ticket transfers.
Julia Reeker Moghal and Reuben Renteria, both of California, sued StubHub in federal court in New York last week, alleging that “false and misleading” sales practices left them without the tickets that they bought last month. The lawsuit seeks class action status.
The June 30 suit claims that Moghal and Renteria are among hundreds or even thousands of World Cup fans who bought tickets only to find out that they “did not exist, were revoked without any forewarning or had been erased.”
“Whether the reason that this occurs is because of a mysteriously ‘poor infrastructure,’ which leads to the cancellation of the World Cup tickets does not matter,” according to the suit. “What matters is that plaintiffs and class members were lied to and purchased World Cup tickets for large sums of money—only to incur tremendous financial losses due to the necessity to pay travel expenses, take off time from work and for other ancillary costs.”
The suit further claims that the ticket issues represent “a new low for a sports ticketing industry that has been rampant with consumer protection issues time and time again to the detriment of the fans who make sports special.”
In addition to monetary damages, Moghal and Renteria are asking that StubHub be barred from selling World Cup tickets, and that any profits from those sales be given to affected customers, according to a story by the Associated Press.
Declining to comment on the specifics of the suit, StubHub said in a statement its “singular goal is to get fans into events,” according to the Associated Press.
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