The rage in ticket sales for the eight finals: I popped in for lunch and my seat was gone!

Malice. An emotion now felt by many a die-hard England football team supporter. Why is that? UEFA sold “their” tickets for the Euro eight finals without warning. “I checked the website thirty times during the morning and when I came back from lunch the tickets were gone!” says one of the “robbed” people angrily.

But let’s go over the whole story from the beginning. It has been known for a long time that the eight-final of this Euro would pit the winner of Group D against the runner-up of Group F. But when the tournament was being drawn up, no one knew Covid-19, so Dublin’s Aviva Stadium was chosen as the venue.

However, two months ago UEFA announced that due to the worsening epidemic situation in Ireland, this play-off clash would be staged at Wembley.

By that time, a number of English fans, whose team was the clear favourite for the ‘deuce’, already owned tickets for the match and had a trip to the next island planned.

Among them was Andrew, a 34-year-old Londoner, who was understandably delighted to hear that the venue had been moved. He emailed UEFA on Monday to ask for information about the ticket swap.

The reply said, “Those who have bought tickets for the Dublin game will be given priority access and will be given the opportunity to get Wembley tickets before other fans.”

But when Wednesday lunchtime came, an email landed in Andrew’s inbox informing him that the sale had just been launched.

“Pretty ugly timing. I was at the gym and got to my mobile at 2pm. I clicked on the link to join the virtual queue, only by the time I got to the portal everything was gone,” he revealed to The Athletic. “It probably sounds a bit pathetic, but it broke my heart quite a bit.”

Meanwhile, UEFA emailed all ticket holders after the game was moved from Dublin and promised to guarantee priority access. The catch is that this “priority access” does not involve any code, as you might imagine, but simply the sending of a link at the exact moment the public sale is launched.

A number of people managed to get tickets without buying them in advance. A message from a friend or on social media was enough.

It is not surprising that a number of English people, who will now miss out on an extremely interesting and important duel with Germany, are upset about the whole situation.

“I was constantly watching the portal that day,” admitted Matt Bruce, who bought his original tickets last January. “I updated about 30 times and left for lunch shortly after 12:30.” Just then, he received an email informing him that the sale had started.

“My friends who didn’t even own tickets to Dublin, but were just lucky enough to turn up on the portal at the right time, were able to get tickets for the game,” Bruce couldn’t understand. “To me that indicates that this was a normal public sale and the word ‘advance’ was completely misleading.”

Now he feels robbed. After all, UEFA had kept his €1,500 for a year and a half, only to return it to him later. “We all waited and hoped that our tickets would remain valid, or at least give us some priority so that we could get tickets in peace for a game we already had them for,” the 24-year-old fan added angrily.

The only option left for him is to pay the resellers. “I’ve been looking at some online resales. They are offering it for over £600 (17,000 crowns). Another slap in my face.”

The situation is even worse for people from other parts of the country. For example, Jack, a student in his early 20s from Belfast, booked his flights and arranged accommodation locally after the game was moved, only to find that the “early access” UEFA promised was not so early.

“It shows complete indifference to the fans. At this time, a trip to the Euro 8 final was one of the few things I could look forward to,” he revealed another story without a happy ending.

Source: The Athletic