Genuine ticket on the left and counterfeit on the right. There are some discrepancies, but only very slightly. The ticket having no hologram was the biggest problem and they need to forget about barcodes as a proof of being an original. Use barcodes to accept the ticket once the hologram has been checked being the only way.
This week the first batch of 3 compensation claims was paid to the Liverpool supporters who were locked out of the UEFA Champions League final played in Paris back in May 2022.
There are a total of 19 618 Liverpool supporters who are scheduled to be paid compensation with the fist batch paid this week involving 3000 supporters. Their claim was for £5000 per supporter totaling £15 million. The details of the settlement have remained confidential to the exact amount accepted and paid but I do believe it would be close to this figure.
If one considers the ticket pricing of which there were 4 categories ranging from £70 up to £690. If you add in the flight costs and hotels which I would guess would be for the majority two days worth plus the experience of being teargassed which I can verify is not exactly fun a figure of £5000 is a fair compensation considering it was created by the stupidity of UEFA.
When you use barcodes on tickets and not a hologram you are going to get counterfeit tickets and the only reason why UEFA used barcodes is to save money. Ironic really because just the first settlement would have more than covered the entire stadium tickets having hologram for that particular match.
This is definitely a penny wise, pound foolish example because what would have cost a much smaller amount if UEFA had done things properly at the time will cost them far more in the long run.
The crazy thing is supporters do not mind paying an extra £10 on the ticket price if they know their ticket has some type of security guaranteeing them their seat. Can you imagine an event like the World Cup Rugby Final which saw standard ticket prices and not tout prices ranging from £500 to £2500 each and the international Rugby Football Union worrying about an extra £10 being added to the ticket for security purposes. The IRFU made a reported £350 million across the event.
If you consider how much money is generated by UEFA hosting the Champions League tournament it is shocking to think they are thinking cost savings when it comes to printing of the tickets considering they are printing serious money over the entire campaign. £2 billion and some change is the figure we are talking about and they are looking at saving less than £1 million protecting their supporters by using holograms on their tickets.
Where there is easy money to be made is even more reason to spend more because it takes the shine off the event when things go wrong. The other nearly 17 000 supporters will hopefully receive their compensation soon and just hope UEFA have learned from their error of judgment which is most likely more wishful thinking. This will happen again in the future because a criminal mind will exploit any weaknesses in the system and UEFA should be taking this very seriously leaving nothing to chance.