English football supporters have been left angry and disappointed after the first sales ballot of Euro 2024 left most with no tickets and concerns that resale sites and bots have hoovered up tickets that they will be forced to buy at inflated prices.
Emails were sent to applicants on Tuesday afternoon, after over 1.2 million tickets were made available in the initial application window that ran between 3-26 October. Social media was immediately awash with disappointed supporters, many of whom had requested more than 50 tickets without success.
i understands that Uefa had identified a large number of bots who were aiming to request tickets, and whose requests were removed from the ballot. It is also understood that 20 million genuine requests were made which has led to low numbers of successful requests.
But i has also spoken to a large number of England supporters who feel disillusioned about a process that led to them requesting a high number of tickets and left them unsuccessful with every request. Their fear is that those tickets will end up on resale sites for many times their original value.
Emma, an England fan who requested tickets to the value of almost €11,000 (£9,500) knowing that competition would be fierce, but was initially fearful that she might be landed with a large bill if the ballot provided a high number of returns. Instead, she didn’t get a single ticket.
“I’m just annoyed really – it took a lot of time to do the application and work it out ,” Emma says. “And then to see how many have been unsuccessful – and maybe that bots or scalps got in to take them from fans.
“I also was opted in to be liable for tickets in category one (the most expensive) for nearly all my applications. And still nothing across all group stages and knockout games.”
“Football fans are being priced out,” says Shanine Salmon, a supporter who requested tickets for numerous games and also got none. “The ticket prices were reasonable and we would have faced expensive hotels and travel and now we almost certainly face touts. At a time where football is trying to welcome more female fans it feels like a slap in the face.”
That theory appears to carry weight. On Tuesday evening, tickets to Euro 2024’s opening game, guaranteed to involve hosts Germany, were being sold via one ticket resale site with prices starting at £645 with a hefty booking fee added.
An alternative resale website claimed to have 133 tickets available for the second match of the tournament, held at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, starting at £338 plus booking fees.
