It's the most EXPENSIVE show on earth... but will that spoil the party for the Tartan Army? Going by the sheer numbers spending thousands of pounds, probably not!

Published: 19:04, 12 June 2026 | Updated: 19:06, 12 June 2026 For another few hours at least, the dream can hold reality at bay. Scotland will put Haiti to the sword in Boston and, a few days later, will tame Morocco in the same city. We march on to Miami for the schooling of Brazil and, topping our group, progress to Houston for the first of our knock-out stage matches. Victory secured, we face our round of 16 opponents in New York and show them no mercy. By now we are a mere three matches away from the World Cup glory we were given to believe was ours for the taking as long ago as Argentina 1978. No mistakes this time. Assuming coach Steve Clarke’s plan goes like clockwork, team captain Andy Robertson will lift the famous gold trophy on July 19 – the day the footballing flower of Scotland finally blooms. Checking their bank balances on some sober morning thereafter, diehard travelling supporters will note this 35-day odyssey of conquest cost them around £30,000 per person. Naturally, it’s the best 30 grand they ever spent. Yes, that’s the dream, and no one can take it away before 2am BST on Sunday. Not to be pessimistic, but the odds of it remaining intact all the way to final whistle on July 19 are somewhere between 350/1 and 500/1. On the most gloomy analysis, disappointment is the baked-in reality for the tens of thousands of Scots prepared to spend a massive chunk of their personal wealth to witness it. And yet, of all the sets of fans arriving in North America to cheer on their national side in the most exorbitant World Cup Finals in the tournament’s history, none are more invested, more exuberant, more pleased as punch just to be there than the Scots. The Scotland fans enjoyed the friendly victory over Bolivia in New Jersey Shakira performed at the Opening Ceremony before the World Cup kicked off on Thursday If those were the metrics for a successful campaign, there really would be only one team in it. Back at the Euros in 1996 the English fans sang of their ‘30 years of hurt’. Three whole decades since their side had won the World Cup. Here we nurse a period almost that long since we even qualified for one. In the 72 years since we first qualified for a World Cup, we have failed to reach the knock-out stages eight out of eight times. Scotland has never made it out of the group stages of the Euros either. Yet, per head of population, the nation has submitted the most World Cup ticket requests of any of the 48 competing and is reckoned to have the biggest travelling support. The briefs for Scotland’s two matches in Boston and the showdown against Brazil in Miami are among the priciest on the resale market, averaging almost $1,000 (£747). According to data from last month, hotel bookings for Boston are ‘higher the nights of Scotland’s two games than for any other match’ and the Tartan Army is paying heavily inflated prices. The average for three and four star hotels on the nights of their team’s matches is between £630 and £785. Then there’s the outlay for getting to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, almost 30 miles from Downtown Boston. Cynically, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has hiked the cost of a return train ticket from $20 to $80 during the World Cup. According to its data, most of tickets sold so far are for the Scotland games. Even Steve Clarke, the coach banking on the Tartan Army’s inimitable roar, has sounded a note of caution: ‘Don’t put yourself and your family into debt. That’s a big thing for me.’ A BBC investigation found it would cost the average Scotland fan more than £7,500 just for the group stage of the tournament, assuming they attended all three matches. For a family, this would rise to £25,800. Gordon Ramsay was a guest at Scotland's training session in Foxborough, Massachusetts Scotland fans Ross Watt and Gordon Strang travelled over to Boston from Cumbernauld And yet between twenty and thirty thousand supporters are doing just that. Include ticket-less fans arriving in the US simply to soak in the atmosphere and the estimates swell to nearly 50,000. They include Jason and Charlotte Macpherson from Kennoway, Fife, who flew first to New York then drove to Boston with their three children. Their youngest, Isabella, is just five weeks old and her arrival in May prompted a desperate scramble for a passport. One small example of the sheer determination not to miss out on the bucket list footballing event of a generation. There are other, more famous examples, of course. The Scottish parliament is not due to go into recess until June 25 but four key SNP ministers are off to the US to join the Tartan Army. While First Minister John Swinney and Sports Minister Maree Todd are there in an official capacity, Transport Minister Stephen Flynn and Community Care Minister Alison Thewliss are flagrantly busting their already generous holiday entitlement to attend. Quizzed on the matter on social media last month, Mr Flynn advised his detractor to ‘bore off’. Is all the ardency – even to the point of ditching parliamentary duties – entirely merited in the face of a dynamic pricing campaign which appears to have seen the Scotland support coming? Many may consider the levels of expenditure crazy, irresponsible. Yet, for all their zeal, there is a gratifying canniness among those fans. Several brigades of the Tartan Army are avoiding Boston entirely and basing themselves in Providence, Rhode Island, which is closer to the stadium than Boston and offers accommodation 40 per cent cheaper. Originally the city’s tourism chiefs reckoned on 5,000 Scottish fans choosing this budget option. Booking data suggests the number is closer to 10,000. And those scandalously steep public transport options? Wily Scots are finding a way around these too. A fleet of yellow school buses – hired by the fans themselves - will depart from both downtown Boston and from Providence to convey more than 1,800 of them to the matches against Haiti and Morocco at half the price they would otherwise pay. Boston has been invaded by thousands of Scotland supporters  The Lockhart Family from Aberdeen are in Boston for the match against Haiti Michael Grace, the chief of police for the town of Foxborough told The Sunday Times: ‘The Scottish fans appear to be the most organised so far and that's a real compliment.’ He added: ‘These fans are way ahead of the curve on where they're staying, what they're doing, where they want to go, how they're going to show up at the stadium. The intel we have is that they bring energy, but they're not here to cause a problem. They're here to enjoy the people's game.’ Wherever they are staying and whatever their team’s fortunes on the field of play, they mean to party. On that, the intel is copper bottomed. For Jason Waddleton, owner of The Haven, only Scottish-themed pub in Boston, that has meant ordering in 150 kegs of Tennent’s lager for what he is calling T Parties. He is originally from Stonehaven – birthplace of the deep-fried Mars Bar – so the ‘delicacy’ will naturally be on offer along with staples such as Lorne sausage and Cullen Skink. ‘The draw has been a gift for us,’ said Mr Waddleton. ‘As soon as the draw was made, I was texting the sales guy to get Tennent's in. We came up with a number, and the number is big.’ And the price, including standard US tax and the customary 20 per cent service tip? Around £9.50 per pint. Win or lose against Haiti, an estimated 5,000 Boston-based fans are expected to attend baseball team the Red Sox game against Texas Rangers on Sunday. A mile and a half march to the team’s home ground of Fenway Park is planned, bagpipes blasting all the way. Providence, meanwhile, will host TA in the Park on Thursday, the day before the Morocco match. As an official FIFA corporate sponsor, Coca-Cola was offered a presence at the event but, when negotiations stalled, guess which soft drinks company came through. Scotland’s other national drink, of course. A Providence Tartan Army spokesman said: ‘Coca-Cola were offered a seat at the biggest Scottish party on American soil. They couldn’t score. So, we are doing what Scotland has always done, and choosing Irn-Bru. Holly Simpson, Georgia Simpson and Kelly Cassidy have joined the Tartan Army in the US There were three mascots doing the rounds at Scotland House at The Anchor in Boston ‘As the best-selling soft drink in Scotland, it beats Coke at home, and this summer it beats Coke away too.’ Hamish Husband, who has travelled to three previous World Cups to see Scotland and is spending £5,000 on his fourth, doubtless echoes the view of many foot-soldiers when he reflects that, in the land of the free, nothing is free for the dedicated fan. This, he said, appears to include ‘gratitude that we, the best fans in the world, would be visiting the greatest event on Earth’. He told the Mail’s sister paper The i: ‘Will any of this spoil the tournament for us? No chance. This World Cup is a chance to spread some joy. The US needs a little cheering up, so what better time to invite the Tartan Army? We're determined to make as positive an impression as possible and we have, as far as possible, taken control of our tournament back into our own hands.’ So much for the big spenders stateside. The cost back home will not be insubstantial either. After John Swinney’s secured a royal proclamation establishing the Monday following the Haiti match as a public holiday, councils agonised over whether they could afford it. Five of the 32 – Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire – decided they could. In Glasgow alone the estimated cost to the city is £520,000. The cost to the NHS, meanwhile, is ‘approximately £60 million’, according to a Freedom of Information response from the Scottish Government, which is giving all 16,650 of its employees the day off. Harder to calculate is the cost to the economy over the duration of the World Cup in lost productivity. More than 40 per cent of all the matches will require fans to stay up into the early hours. It will be around 4am UK time when the final whistle blows in the Haiti match and others on the west coast of North America won’t even kick off until 5am. Scotland head coach Steve Clarke was in good spirits at training ahead of the Haiti opener Scotland's star man Scott McTominay has been passed fit for the opening game It remains to be seen how many of Scotland’s workforce pull ‘sickies’ or are half asleep at their desks, but one estimate puts the resulting dent in corporate efficiency on Monday alone at around £15 million to £20 million. Meanwhile Tom Coleman, a sleep scientist at retailer Hillarys, says hardcore World Cup fans could lose up to 275 hours of sleep during the whole tournament. The counterbalance is the after-hours hospitality boom. Most Scottish councils have approved (very) late night opening for bars which already offer televised sport. The dispensation for Edinburgh bars includes all 104 World Cup matches to be played, no matter how late they finish. Some pubs in the Capital, then, may still be pouring pints after 7am when much of the country is getting ready for work. In Glasgow, meanwhile, the norm will be doors closed within 30 minutes of matches finishing or an absolute latest cut off point of 5am. Among the most controversial licences granted was that given to the city’s TRNSMT music festival on June 19, the night of the Morocco match. Essentially tens of thousands of fans will be able to spend the day and evening watching live music and, at 11pm, settle into the match – drinking alcohol all the while if they wish. ‘At the end of the game, the crowds will be dispersed, many of them having spent 14 hours on Glasgow Green,’ complained Calton Community Council chairman Tricia Fort. ‘They will be getting into taxis, private cars, buses, whatever, causing noise and disruption in the area.’ Glasgow City Council’s licensing committee duly waved the proposal through. It’s the World Cup. Scotland has been an absentee for 28 years. Who knows when the chance will come again? It is this inarguable rationale which has prompted thousands who love football to make extraordinary financial sacrifices. More arguable, perhaps, are the sacrifices expected of those who don’t love it, The greatest sporting spectacle on the planet is kicking off in time zones which are not ideal for us. But we’re part of it and, in this delicious moment, our boys have not put a foot wrong. The knock-out stages are just three matches away. The dream is on. And, more than any other nation represented at these finals, we live and breathe it. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. 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