Meet Ruairi. He’s a six-year-old Manchester United fan and is football bonkers. He lives five minutes from the ground and is already a regular in the Stretford End. He was a mascot for the 2-1 win over Crystal Palace earlier in the year; he’s been on away days to Seville, Istanbul and Bilbao.
This same six-year-old superfan is now under suspicion of ticket touting. Under a widespread club probe, his account has been deactivated pending a review. The future of his precious season-ticket is up in the air.
“It’s scandalous,” his mother Kate, a season-ticket holder for 19 years, told The Independent. “You can put so much worry [on the situation]. We can’t tell our son that he’s not going to United. It’s our life, it’s what we do. It’s where I met my husband. It’s what we do every weekend together as a family. He’s obsessed.”
His dad Gary added: “If we told him he couldn’t go to games, he’d be devastated. Absolutely devastated.”
His is just one nightmare realised among reportedly thousands of loyal match-going supporters over the past few days. Racked with anxiety, fans who claim to have followed the club across the continent for decades say they’re at risk of having such a significant part of their weekly routine severed, for reasons that are anything but exclusive to touts.
Ruairi’s situation in particular picked up serious traction amid a social media frenzy. Kate’s post drawing attention to his plight had been viewed by 1.9 million people at the time of writing. As fans abandoned any sort of tribalism, the response was unanimous: fury.
United have not maliciously targeted a six-year-old – nobody is alleging that. Instead, it’s the methods for weeding out touts that are coming under significant scrutiny. The club believe supporters affected have only been contacted if there is a technical anomaly consistent with behaviour used by touts – but rather than investigate this further before causing immense panic and stress, United have been accused of a “ban first and ask questions later” process by supporter groups such as the Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must).
- An explanation for activity indicating that your account has been accessed or managed by a third party that also appears to access at least 6+ other Manchester United ticketing accounts, or why you have accessed or managed at least 6+ other accounts.
- A list of the devices you regularly use to access your account.
Confirmation of whether your account is accessed from multiple locations and, if so, details of those locations.
A brief explanation of how your account is normally accessed and managed.
A copy of valid photographic identification for account verification purposes. This would not be stored on file following verification.
An explanation for activity indicating that your account has been accessed or managed by a third party that also appears to access at least 6+ other Manchester United ticketing accounts, or why you have accessed or managed at least 6+ other accounts.
A list of the devices you regularly use to access your account.
Confirmation of whether your account is accessed from multiple locations and, if so, details of those locations.
A brief explanation of how your account is normally accessed and managed.
A copy of valid photographic identification for account verification purposes. This would not be stored on file following verification.
A near-identical email, seen by The Independent, has been sent around to hundreds of fans by Man United, who say they have identified “patterns linked to access to your ticketing account that we need to understand more clearly”. The club then request “a straightforward explanation for the activity identified”.
In Ruairi’s case, Kate claimed this anomaly stemmed from her logging into her son’s account. It’s one of 11 accounts of family and friends she has access to, many of whom share logins – for context, anyone who had given their login credentials to more than six different people were flagged by United. They all sit in the same “singing section” of the Stretford End, placed together by design to create atmosphere. This was detailed thoroughly in her appeal.
But until that is reviewed, his account – like all others – has been restricted. It’s not yet a sanction nor an outright ban, with United insisting they are “not assuming any wrongdoing”. That won’t be how it feels on the first day of the Premier League season, though.
“We can’t apply for Hull away, so whether you like to say the word ban or not, you’ve banned my six-year-old because he can’t apply for Hull away now,” Kate fumed, with the appeal process set to take at least a month. “He’s definitely missing that first away game of the season, as is my husband.”
There is a feeling within Must that the current blanket action being taken is completely disproportionate. “Effectively banning people and asking them to prove they shouldn’t be banned… offends against all natural justice,” a spokesperson said.
Must has confirmed to The Independent that it has been in daily private meetings with the club in an effort to “de-escalate” what was described by a spokesperson as “a war on the hardcore fanbase”. It is eager to work collaboratively to eradicate the “common enemy” of touting, which plagues the game and hits the overwhelming majority of regular fans the hardest. But it feels United, who insist there is no ticketing process that requires a supporter to access another person’s account, must change their attitudes towards tackling the issue.
“We are trying to help them understand what is ‘normal fan behaviour’,” a spokesperson added. ” Groups of fans do share logins for each other’s ticketing accounts, and that is not evidence of touting.”
Whether these efforts result in a club climb-down or not, the fiasco has resulted in another spike in distrust among United’s “often underrepresented” match-going support – because the money does not come from them.
Under United’s new categorised ticketing system (different prices for different matches) introduced before last term, the price discrepancy between a season ticket and 19 individual Premier League home tickets sold to a general member has gone from being minimal to hundreds of pounds. If standard seats are converted into hospitality seating – as happened in the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand before last season, which moved around 500 season-ticket holders – potential profits go stratospheric. The club has made a small reduction to its season ticket allocation in recent years – from around 53,000 in 2019 to approximately 47,000 now, despite the 25-year waiting list – and there are fears the contingent will be chipped away at further.
“100 percent, they don’t want us,” Kate asserts. “They don’t want the working class fan, they don’t want your standard season ticket holders and it’s a shame because until it happens, they won’t realise just how much we are the life and soul of the club.”
Must adds that there has been “a longstanding suspicion that the club want fewer season-ticket holders”.
Man United sources refuted these claims to The Independent, stressing that the process is not being undertaken to drive revenue nor reduce the number of season tickets. The club assures any season tickets cancelled will be re-issued to someone on the waiting list, or with a cup season ticket.
And it’s important to note the Red Devils are far from the only club to be on the end of this criticism. Down the M62, similar sentiments surround fierce rivals Liverpool, whose Anfield Road Stand extension saw nearly two times the extra allocation go towards hospitality rather than season tickets.
As United plunged into a conflict with their core support base, Liverpool announced that £1.2m had been seized from organised ticket touts following a joint investigation with Merseyside Police that led to 432 lifetime bans and 115 indefinite suspensions – 65 of which related to season-ticket holders.
This was sold as a big win in the war with touting. Given what’s going on at Old Trafford right now, you can’t blame any scepticism.
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