Exclusive | Atlanta stadium execs spent $600K in tax dollars on World Cup VIP seats while fretting over crazy prices

Executives at the taxpayer-backed agency that owns Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium secretly blew over $600,000 on VIP World Cup seats — even as they fretted that ticket prices were “crazy” and “not the most prudent use of public funds,” The Post has learned.As regular soccer fans get frozen out by FIFA’s sky-high dynamic pricing, executives at the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) used an exclusive backchannel to land a sweetheart deal for a luxury suite and 270 premium World Cup seats to entertain clients at the home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, according to internal emails.Behind closed doors, the GWCCA’s top brass knew the optics were terrible, according to the emails obtained through a public records request.In January 2025, chief commercial officer Joe Bocherer issued a red flag, warning colleagues against dropping $442,750 on a 22-seat all-inclusive suite after executives learned their regular VIP memberships did not include World Cup games.“We are starting to believe a suite at this time is not the most prudent use of public funds,” he wrote in an email, predicting the boxes “will get cheaper as we get closer” in an apparent dig at FIFA’s prices.Bocherer went on to note that a cheaper alternative would come out at $21,000 per seat compared to the $37,000 per seat in the VIP box — although he nevertheless expressed disbelief at the stratospheric prices, according to one emailed breakdown.“Wow..this is still crazy,” Bocherer wrote of the $21,000 seats.Nevertheless, by March of last year, the bosses agreed to split an $885,500 suite tab 50/50 with the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, a nonprofit that promotes the city worldwide.“Per direction (of) our board, the desire is for GWCCA to stay within a $3-400k-ish expense for FIFA 2026,” Bocherer said in a later message on March 3, 2025.The emails obtained by The Post fail to spell out a reason for the change of heart, and a GWCCA spokeswoman dec...