Why England vs Croatia fans were only allocated 10% of 80,000-seater Dallas Stadium

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England’s World Cup campaign begins against Croatia, but only a small portion of fans from both sides will be in the ground, officially.

Dallas Stadium holds as many as 80,000 supporters and demand for the Three Lions’ game against the 2018 finalists was high.

However, both sets of fans only officially received 10 per cent of the ground, being given 4,022 tickets each.

Why were England and Croatia fans given a small allocation for game?

The official England Supporters’ Travel Club (ESTC) were only given an allocation of 4,022 for the game while others were required to buy their tickets independently.

Any other tickets were likely to have been purchased via the FIFA resale portal, where prices for those have risen.

The United Kingdom Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) told BBC Sport that they expect as many as 15,000 England fans to be at each group game while a total of 89,000 tickets have been purchased by Three Lions supporters.

This World Cup has already broken attendance records and England fans have been drinking copious amounts of beer as one of the best-supported nations.

Who are the best-supported nation at the 2026 World Cup?

Outside of three host nations, some of the best-supported nations include some surprise nations.

It’s no shock to hear that defending champions Argentina have a lot of fans in attendance this summer. As well as being one of the countries with a shorter travel time, a large portion of Argentines do live in the USA so are there already.

In Europe, fans of Turkey, Germany, England, the Netherlands and more have all travelled in large numbers while Morocco will probably be one of the best-represented nations.

Some countries will be relying on people who already live in the USA, Canada and Mexico due to the visa bans put in place by Donald Trump.