Liverpool tickets ballot causes fan OUTRAGE

Liverpool and Anfield are famous in the world of football, but for many Reds getting tickets through official channels is practically impossible.

On Thursday 7 November, two days after the Reds' dominating win over Bayer Leverkusen, the Liverpool FC membership ballot results were released for the second half of the season.

This means that all the club’s official members who had registered for games found out whether they had, or in most cases, hadn’t been lucky enough to get tickets to a Premier League game.

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There are two ballots a season and every time the results are released, without fail, the reaction online is the same.

Thousands of fans take to social media to voice their concern, anger and disappointment at not getting any tickets in the ballot, and nothing seems to be changing.

The Liverpool FC official membership

The club’s official membership comes in three tiers: light, full and premium, but all three give you the same chance of tickets and a 10% discount in the club store.

The cheapest package available costs £26.99 and the most expensive is a whopping £74, although this package does come with an exclusive wash bag and some other club merchandise as well as a year of LFCTV GO.

For every Premier League game, 13,000 tickets are reserved for members, and more are made available in the days leading up to each match in exclusive member’s only sales.

For many of the club’s members though, four or five days notice of going to the match may not be enough for them if they have to make travel/work arrangements and therefore the ballot is the main way people rely on getting their tickets.

There are of course certain factors that impact the demand for tickets, including performance, and Arne Slot’s spectacular start to the season will have Reds desperate to get inside Anfield and see Liverpool play.

Ticketing reform at Liverpool

In the 2021/22 season the club made the decision to switch to Near Field Communication (NFC) tickets that are stored on people’s phones. Since then, a number of changes have come into effect on the ticketing system in an attempt to reduce ticket touting.

At the end of October Liverpool announced that they had banned over 100,000 fake accounts and handed out multiple lifetime bans for ticket touting.

In the same month they also launched a survey for members and season ticket holders to complete regarding the ticketing system and any changes they would like to see.

For many fans the biggest problem is paying for a membership, sometimes for years, without getting a single ticket.

This leaves fans who are desperate to attend matches to either pay for expensive hospitality packages, the cheapest currently listed on the official club website is £345, or to turn to ticket touts, who are breaking the law by reselling tickets.

People who do turn to resellers are often left disappointed outside the ground and the club has previously warned that fake and scam tickets are often sold online.

The overarching feeling among Reds who have been unsuccessful in the recent ballot is anger, but these fans will continue to support Liverpool and, if genuine reform to the ticketing system is coming, it may be easier for everyone to get to Anfield at least once a season.

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