MANCHESTER UNITED have been forced to apologise for the “unacceptable” situation that saw thousands of Galatasaray fans get seats in the United home end.
The Gala supporters were able to enjoy their 3-2 victory at Old Trafford on Tuesday night from the hospitality section as well as regular seats around The Theatre of Dreams.
The club are currently investigating how Galatasaray fans were able to get home tickets so easily and published their initial findings today.
Some United fans have claimed that they were assaulted and abused in their home end and Chief Operating Officer Colette Roche apologised to them in her statement.
Roche said bots were to blame for tickets being snapped up, and that they were then redistributed by online touts.
The bots deceived the club into believing they had in fact been purchased by official members, many of whom were under the age of 16, United added.
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“As such, our system showed that these tickets were predominantly sold to long-standing official members who have attended other matches in recent seasons, with a large percentage being to those under the age 16, and therefore did not appear in pre-match checks to pose any risk,” Said Roche.
“In reality, those who turned up on the night were adult Galatasaray fans.”
Roche also conceded that the club’s policy, that you do not have to be an official member to buy tickets in the hospitality section, added to the problem.
She said: “‘Whilst this hasn’t presented issues in the last couple of decades, the volume of tickets accessed by non-Turkish residents who transpired to be Galatasaray fans was unacceptable.”
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United claim stewards were able to remove some Galatasaray fans from the home end but the sheer number of fans in some pockets of the ground made it impossible to tackle them all.
United will now restrict access to tickets for their upcoming cup games against Newcastle, Copenhagen and Bayern Munich to “People already in our database.”
Roche’s statement finished by saying: “I hope the above update gives you some reassurance that we take this matter seriously and are working with our fan representatives to avoid a potential repeat.
“I apologise to those affected and thank you as always for your continued support.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
