thfcsteff
George Hunt
There were incidents of legitimate tickets only showing up as as fakes because some fudger had already got in with the fake version/clone of that ticket.
This is 100% a UEFA issue, and again, only someone with an agenda would blame a fan.
Bear in mind, I despise touts and scalpers, but they have been a part of sports and entertainment for decades and appear to still do a roaring trade. Fans desperate to go will often make stupid decisions and go to scalpers/touts. From all nations. UEFA will surely have had intelligence on the potential for a game to be scalped/touted at a greater level for Finals. They should've implemented either -
1) a proper series of checks outside the stadium, starting a lot further away.
2) devised a different system for ticketing
My personal choice would be to implement something like what is done for flights, whereby you have to pre-register for your ticket 24 hours before and then pick it up at specially designated ticket offices at the stadium. You'd be issued a wristband and immediately need to enter the stadium concourse. Anyone wishing to receive a souvenir ticket can register again AFTER the match to either print out a PDF of their 'ticket' OR even purchase a 'special gift edition' for a nominal fee.
One thing this would do is virtually eliminate the touting side of things, which I frankly believe happens within the corporate handouts often (I'd love to see an enquiry into where every ticket for a CL or any UEFA final ends up -how many hands it passes through etc). I wonder if UEFA are all that interested? They certainly don't seem to give a brick about the fans either way, but a black market CL Final ticket can net many many thousands of pounds. I was offered 3 grand in cash at JFK when I was connecting in 2019.