Man Utd tickets: Fans react with fury over club season-ticket restrictions

Physical season tickets are a thing of the past in the Premier League.

Clubs now use digital systems where fans download tickets to their phones. At many clubs, this change has been accompanied by stricter rules on how and how often ticket holders can transfer their tickets to others.

At Manchester United, for example, fans can have their season tickets canceled if they fail to attend at least 16 of the 19 Premier League matches or pass their tickets on to approved friends and family members.

Last season, the club removed 500 season ticket holders from the seats they had used for years to cover the increase in accommodation tickets.

The Red Devils have made major cuts to their workforce, including those working in ticketing, since the partial takeover of Ineos in 2024.

The method for identifying suspicious accounts that United uses uses third-party software and is largely automated.

In a message posted to the club’s supporters forum after the first restrictions were sent to fans last week, United defended its approach and insisted the vast majority of those facing potential sanctions had behaved badly.

“Our recent operation focused on instances where multiple accounts exhibited patterns of activity that suggested they were centrally controlled, coordinated by the same person, or operated using automated software,” they said.

“We are confident that the vast majority of accounts identified as abusive were properly flagged with appropriate safeguards in place.”

United cracked down on the touts last season by canceling 22,000 tickets for the first five home games of the season.

They see this figure as the “tip of the iceberg” and believe that approximately 10-15% of season tickets are controlled by touts.