Exclusive | FIFA sued for deceptive World Cup ticket sales as fat cats and well-connected hoard VIP seats

FIFA allegedly gave regular fans the idea they had a chance to sit by the pitch when they shelled out for premium World Cup tickets — but soccer’s global governing body secretly locked them out of the running, instead allocating all the best seats to corporate bigwigs and VIPs, according to a bombshell lawsuit reviewed by The Post.The suit, filed as a class action earlier this month in Washington, DC, against FIFA’s US subsidiary, accuses the organizers of “deceptive trade practices” over its coveted “Category 1” tickets for this summer’s World Cup.According to the complaint filed on July 2, FIFA gave fans the misimpression they had a shot at primo seats near the midfield sideline by including them in a wide area marked “Category 1”.Since customers could only buy tickets by category — and not for specific seats — fans surmised they had a shot at ending up with the best spots once the tickets were actually doled out, the suit says.But the process was effectively rigged because FIFA had already allocated the best Category 1 seats to VIPs as part of wallet-busting “hospitality packages” that could cost tens of thousands of dollars per person, the suit alleges.“The fact that FIFA appears to have not made any of the sideline tickets available to people who bought Cat 1 is scandalous,” fumes one anonymous fan quoted in the suit.Another fan adds: “I feel like FIFA intentionally misled us when they provided us with that seating chart, making us think that we had a possibility of sitting beside the pitch, when in actuality that was never possible in the first place.”The plaintiff, Vera Feinhaus of Washington, DC., says she paid $1,680 for two Category 1 tickets for a July 4 knockout match in Philadelphia, relying on FIFA’s seating chart.When seat assignments dropped in March, she was relegated to an undesirable location near the stadium’s corners, her complaint says.The suit is seeking punitive damages and demanding FIFA cough up at le...