Football: Ticket Touting Crackdown!
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Following our earlier Post of 19 September 2025, it has now been reported that Liverpool FC have closed 145,000 ticket accounts during the last two years as part of a crackdown against touting.
The Club has also issued a record 1,114 lifetime bans last season, following the discovery of mass manipulation of software used to buy tickets. Eleven of these bans applied to season ticket holders.
These lifetime bans, the majority of which were imposed for the unauthorised sale of season tickets, memberships or hospitality tickets, represent a big increase on the 75 bans imposed during the previous season.
Also, during the last 12 months, 500 people were denied entry to the Club’s matches, after trying to gain access with burner phones, which are used by touts to avoid tickets being traced.
Investigators for Liverpool have also closed 162 social media groups, which have a combined membership of more than one million users, that were involved in selling fake tickets or reselling real ones at extortionate rates.
Furthermore, during the 2023-24 season, the Club closed 100,000 fake accounts.
The Club, which has more than 30,000 season ticket holders, operates an official sanctions procedure, whereby senior club officials and a member from an independent supporters’ association hear cases and decide on the appropriate actions.
Tom Greatrex, the chairman of the Football Supporters Association remarked:
"Long-term supporters are finding it impossible to get tickets because of the way they are made available through secondary agencies."
And added:
"This is becoming endemic across the game."
The English Premier League has warned fans to use "extreme caution" when using unauthorised sites and is introducing encrypted barcodes for digital ticketing which will make touting more difficult.
The resale of tickets is illegal in the UK, but many websites continue to operate by being based outside the country.
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
