Liverpool have issued 1,114 lifetime bans to supporters and closed 45,000 fake accounts in their latest crack down on ticket touting.
It continues the work the club has done to fight back against the issue. The lifetime ban total has risen significantly from the 75 handed out in 2023-24.
During that season, Liverpool shut down close to 100,000 fake ticketing accounts following suspicious online activity, while cancelling 1,500 tickets, and issuing 136 indefinite suspensions.
Of the lifetime bans issued in the most recent operations, almost half of those imposed were the result of discovering a mass manipulation of software.
Club investigators shut down 162 social media groups, which had a combined membership of more than one million users, that were involved in selling fake tickets or reselling tickets at extortionate prices.
Liverpool have a zero-tolerance approach to ticket touting and the majority of the lifetime bans and indefinite suspensions were handed out for unauthorised selling of season tickets, memberships or hospitality tickets.
The club are currently investigating a further 10,000 suspicious accounts and feel positive steps have been taken, illustrated by the drop in fake accounts being closed. They believe that the new preventative measures including multi-factor authentication, single sign-on and the implementation of more advanced fraud analysis tools have been key to this.
More resources were also committed to boots-on-the-ground across the 2024-25 season. Just under 400 targeted stops were carried out on matchdays preventing access to the turnstiles for accounts with suspicious activity.
Almost 500 people were denied access to Anfield when trying to gain access to the stadium with a burner phone, which is often described as an inexpensive, prepaid, and disposable mobile phone used for temporary or anonymous communication.
Due to the club’s recent success, the demand for tickets has soared with people this season keen to see Arne Slot’s reigning Premier League champions in action.
The stadium expansion work completed in recent years has increased Anfield’s capacity to beyond 62,000 but the demand still comfortably outweighs the 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 via a ballot.
(Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
