by Tony Attwood
Ahead of this game an announcement appeared on Arsenal.com stating that access to tickets was going to be very restricted. Red members, for example, would not be able to buy tickets and there would be no sale of tickets to away fans.
And yet at the same time hundreds of websites were offering tickets for sale – thus seemingly bypassing the restriction for red members.
In other words if you were a red member you could not buy a ticket, but if you wanted to go to a ticket tout you could. Where is the logic in that? Will the people with touted tickets be arrested?
Here is the announcement
“Following discussions with the police and local authorities, we are having to place restrictions on ticket sales for this fixture. This decision is based on safety considerations and follows the difficulties experienced when we played FC Cologne in September 2017.
“As a result of this anticipated demand from Eintracht Frankfurt supporters and the confirmation that they will not be receiving an allocation, we have been forced to limit ticket sales to our supporters for the match in order to prevent visiting supporters overwhelming Arsenal sections of the stadium. Consequently, there will be no sales to our Red Adult and Cannon Red Members for this match. Also, the Friends & Family and Ticket Exchange Service will not be in operation for this match.
“Any Eintracht Frankfurt supporters in possession of a home ticket will be refused entry and any who do manage to gain entry will face ejection from the stadium. We will also cancel the memberships of anyone who has sold their tickets on to Eintracht Frankfurt supporters.”
On 25 November when I checked for availability of tickets, expecting to have to search, and this is what I found…
- Live Football Tickets web site showed on 25 November tickets at £158 and £249
- Ticket Compare has tickets ranging from £117 to £158 available
- FanPass confirmed it had 58 tickets available.
- Hotfootballtickets had tickets from £76
- Compared Arsenal Tickets had tickets from £117
- FootballTicketPad had two tickets for £235
- SportsTickets had a range of tickets from £120 upwards
and on and on and on and on and on. Company after company offering tickets for a game which Arsenal told us everything above.
Now all these tickets are openly on sale, so in all cases the police could be notified and the company’s offices stormed, the directors and employees removed and the company shut down.
So why not?
Red Members have been stopped by Arsenal from buying tickets at normal prices, but these companies are charging three times the face value of each ticket.
The club absolutely must know where these tickets are coming from and how they are being passed on, yet I myself find I am in a situation in which I am afraid to pass on my silver membership card used by the partner when she can’t go because of the dire warnings about not allowing anyone other than the named person buy a ticket with the card or use the card for entry.
Of course it is possible that I have got my information wrong – in which case I will be delighted to be corrected – but those adverts were all live on the internet on 25 November.
If the restrictions have worked then it is going to be a small crowd.
And if it’s a small crowd…………yet another stick for the media to beat us with!
It is not just this game this has gone on. Before silver members can buy tickets (which is 2 months before the date of a game) there are always hundreds of tickets on sale at sites like these mentioned in you article. How does that happen ?
I don’t think it is right but the wrong decision taken by Arsenal to have drastically scaled down the numbers of tickets allocation for sales to their home fans. Which by this decision they seemed to have lumped together the club’s home fans with those of the Eintracht Frankfurt traveling away fans as potential trouble makers warranting a drastic reduced tickets sales allocations on security concerns ground. Which if breached is likely to happen from the away fans side but obviously won’t happen from the home fans side inside or outside the Emirates Stadium where the Europa League Cup matchday no 5 match will be played on Thursday night this week.
Serious concern is being raised in some Arsenal home fans quarters questioning why the ticket to buy to watch the match are denied them for a purported security breach reason could happen on matchday. But which is being proactively forestall from happening by the authority concerned. But these match tickets that are being denied the Arsenal Ems match goers from purchasing them to watch the match have reported found their ways to the football match tickets sales touts enmmase according to reports. Thus, making the Arsenal home fans who wanted to buy tickets to watch the match to begin to wonder what is actually cooking at Arsenal as regard to tickets sales allotments for the match.
As for the police arresting the tickets sales touts who are selling these tickets to prospective buyers but at inflated price to make gains, I think the police should look the other way to leave the touts alone. But who are illegitimately trying to make ends meet to alleviate hardships to keep body and soul together from separating.
But how did these match tickets find their ways to the match tickets touts to sell? Did these tickets leave the Arsenal match tickets vault on their own to go to the match tickets touts to sell? I don’t think so because I am of the opinion that Arsenal have authorised the moving of these match tickets to the match tickets sales touts because they realised if they don’t do that, the club will lose the big money that they would have made from selling these tickets to fans. For this singular reason, I think Arsenal are obviously not willing to take the financial loss which the club will incur if they keep these match tickets in their match tickets vault unsold which will become useless after the match has been played.
But why did Arsenal decided to print the match tickets for their ELC home match against Eintracht Frankfurt above what they have already known they should print out for the match for security concerns? To me, the answer is simple. It’s because Arsenal need money and that’s why they’ve decided to print the match tickets in sufficient number for this their particular ELC home match against Frankfurt and shipped out some of the tickets to the football match tickets sales touts so that the club will get the money they want from this match. And I think by their doing so is not unlawful.
But nevertheless, I am appealing to the Arsenal Red fans and others to bear this unforeseen improper match tickets sales with Arsenal which I believe is one off. For, I believe Arsenal will take extra care in future to avert this kind of failed match tickets sales happening to their home fans. More especially to have happened to the club’s season ticket holders. I believe Arsenal will tender apology unreservedly to their season ticket holders and others for their not getting the match tickets for the Arsenal vs Frankfurt ELC match purchased at the official control price but at inflated price in the blackmarket. This kind ugly thing does happen at one time or the other. But the good thing is to take it on the chin and bear it and move on in life.