England Supporters Club

For tournaments prior to Euro 2020, the ticket application process required you to enter your credit card details. When UEFA had determined who were the successful applicants (with input from the ESTC team), they would immediately draw the ticket payment from your credit card without any further involvement from the applicant. This was great from UEFA's perspective because no one could back out of the transaction : they made their sale and got their money. But this system was disastrous for any member who had had his credit card replaced by the card company, often without his consent, because the card had been compromised in some way. His application lapsed through non-payment and he lost of all his allocated tickets.

Under the current system, the applicant must pay for the tickets after the result of the allocation has been announced. So, no one will lose his tickets because his credit card has been reissued. But there is the opportunity for successful applicants to back out of the deal by not paying for their tickets. We know that for England away matches, 10% - 20% of those who are allocated tickets do not buy the ticket they have been allocated. I wonder what the percentage is for Euro 2020 tickets.

The fact that some tickets from the summer general public sale were not paid for is probably the reason why the December ticket sale included a further sale to the general public. I don't think this was originally planned. Certainly, there was no mention of such a further general public sale in any of the UEFA brochures or early press releases. Such a sale, at the same time as the sale of the FA ticket allocation, has not been done before. And the fact that the two sales were taking place at the same time is the reason why some ESTC members inadvertently entered the wrong ticket portal and missed out on tickets from the FA allocation.

It still remains to be seen how many tickets from the fans' December sale will not be paid for, leaving UEFA with more tickets to shift.

If UEFA have a bad experience with fans not paying for their tickets, I wonder whether they will revert to the previous payment system for Euro 2024.