Liverpool fight massive touting challenge

Today at 04:22 AM

The redevelopment of the Anfield Road Stand may have lifted the stadium's capacity beyond 60,000 last year but the demand for seats still far outstrips supply.

Liverpool have 28,000 season ticket holders and a further 11,000 tickets per game are hospitality seats. Visiting teams receive around 3,000 tickets, with the rest sold to members (who pay an annual fee of between £37 and £46) via a ballot.

The season ticket waiting list has been closed since 2017. Some of those who finally got the call when the redevelopment was complete had been on it for over 25 years.

With so many fans having little hope of obtaining general admission tickets through official channels, touts are capitalising as they illegally sell genuine tickets at hugely inflated prices. Others are fraudulently selling fake or cloned tickets, with Liverpool's data showing that international supporters, many of whom are trying to visit Anfield for the first time, are being particularly targeted.

The move from paper to digital tickets in recent years has arguably made it even easier for touts to operate as they no longer have to hang around Anfield on matchdays. Now, the touting operation has become an increasingly sophisticated, multi-million-pound operation, involving organised crime gangs both on Merseyside and further afield.

Liverpool discovered that gangs had been trying to infiltrate their ticket office by applying for jobs at Anfield and have also attempted to intimidate club employees in order to access tickets. In July and November 2024, online sales for members were subjected to sustained cyber attacks which were designed to illegally harvest tickets.

Now, Liverpool are fighting back. Last season, the club shut down close to 100,000 fake ticketing accounts following suspicious online activity, cancelled 1,500 tickets, and issued 47 lifetime bans and 136 indefinite suspensions.

So far this season, they have deactivated just under 20,000 ticketing accounts, cancelled 1,200 tickets, and issued 47 lifetime bans or indefinite suspensions. That final figure is expected to be a lot higher come May as a host of investigations continue.

Liverpool have three permanent members of staff dedicated to touting and sanctions regarding stadium and online behaviour. They are supplemented by a matchday touting response team of stewards.

Liverpool are aware that a number of touts operate with burner phones rather than actually forwarding tickets to buyers. One scheme involves fans having to hand over their passport in return for a phone which has a ticket on. A post-match meeting point is then arranged for them to swap back.

Other touts are even more brazen and will actually scan buyers in at the turnstiles. They don't want to forward tickets on as they would lose the credit for future sales.

As a result, it is difficult to put an accurate number on how many seats inside Anfield are being touted but club officials believe it runs into the thousands for each home game.

There is a sense of frustration among club staff about the slow nature of the criminal justice system in the UK. They believe the sentencing guidelines do not act as a sufficient deterrent given the sums of money involved.

Liverpool have contacted social media companies in the hope they would help combat scams being run on their sites but they have shown little interest in joining the fight.

There is a dedicated page on the club website where fans are asked to report touting and the regular bulletins staff receive make heartbreaking reading. Earlier this season, a family of four flew over from Belfast for a child's birthday and paid £800 per ticket. They were all fake. With the game completely sold out, there was nothing ticket office staff could do.

Off the field, Liverpool have joined forces with Premier League rivals Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal in the fight against touting. Meetings have taken place this season with the sharing of data and information about what is working for each of them in terms of controls on accounts and online sales.