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.
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