English football fans are fuming after missing out on Euro 2024 tickets and suspecting that bots have rigged the ballot. The first sales ballot of Euro 2024 left most fans ticketless, sparking concerns that resale sites and bots have snatched up tickets, leaving genuine fans with no choice but to buy them at inflated prices.
On Tuesday afternoon, emails were sent to applicants after over 1.2 million tickets were made available in the initial application window from 3rd to 26th October. Disappointed supporters flooded social media with their grievances, many of whom had requested more than 50 tickets without any success.
Uefa identified a large number of bots attempting to request tickets, and their requests were removed from the ballot. However, despite 20 million genuine requests, the number of successful requests remained low.
Many England supporters expressed disillusionment with the ticket request process. They had hoped for a high number of tickets but were left empty-handed. Their fear is that these tickets will end up on resale sites at exorbitant prices.
Emma, an England fan, had applied for tickets worth almost €11,000 (£9,500) and was worried about the fierce competition. However, she didn’t receive 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 scalpers 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.”
Shanine Salmon, another supporter, also expressed frustration. “Football fans are being priced out,” she says. “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.”
This sentiment seems to be supported by the fact that tickets to Euro 2024’s opening game, involving hosts Germany, were being sold on a ticket resale site with prices starting at £645, along with a hefty booking fee. Another 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.