FIFA reveals outrageous parking prices for Toronto World Cup games

If the cost to get into one of the seven FIFA World Cup matches coming to Toronto next month wasn’t enough, wait until fans see the cost of parking.

On Friday, FIFA unveiled the official parking plan for the upcoming tournament games, which allows fans to pre-purchase a spot near Toronto Stadium for $74.99. The designated lot is about a five minute walk from Toronto Stadium, according to FIFA's website.

There will be six matches played over three weeks at Toronto Stadium, starting with Canada's opener versus Bosnia & Herzegovina on June 12. 

Germany is the highest-ranked team to play a group stage game in Toronto, facing off against Ivory Coast on June 20. 

FIFA's pre-purchased parking is the same cost for all six games in Toronto.

The costs for World Cup parking is more than double the regular price of parking at BMO Field for Toronto FC or Toronto Argonauts contests.

FIFA noted that parking passes cannot be resold and must be purchased using the same email address tied to the fan’s World Cup ticket. Fans are limited to buying one parking pass per customer, and no passes will be sold on match day.

The cost of parking for the Vancouver games, Canada’s other World Cup host city, is the same as in Toronto.

And compared to some American host cities, Canadians may be getting off easy.

Official parking in San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are a lot less accessible by public transit than Vancouver or Toronto, has spots listed between US$203.45 and $299.99; in both cases, it would still require a walk to the stadium.

That makes paying $75 in Toronto or Vancouver to park somehow sound like a bargain.

Of course, the more feasible option for Torontonians would be just parking a little further away, or taking a train to the stadium, instead of caving for FIFA's sky-high parking costs.