There is still a really long way to go before any potential Premier League title game comes around for Arsenal. With the way in which the season is playing out, it could go all the way to the final day and there will be plenty of disappointed supporters who tried and failed to be able to see the event should that be the case.
For Arsenal red members, tickets went on sale for the final home game of the season, which is the last match of the entire campaign for the Gunners, against Wolves. Some supporters logged on as early as 8am for the 10am release ,with the situation now notoriously difficult for fans to get tickets.
Arsenal warned supporters yesterday evening in preparation for the sale to not buy tickets from unauthorised sellers. The club have been implementing new technology to try and identify suspected bot accounts.
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A club spokesperson told football.london at the end of March when tickets for the Wolves game went on sale for silver members that they had blocked hundreds of thousands of these accounts. However, supporters still told us about the struggles in trying to acquire the tickets.
"We’ve implemented new and improved technology to prevent bot activity to do everything we can to put tickets in the hands of our supporters," the club said. "This has resulted in more than 300,000 suspected bots being blocked from the ticketing site in recent weeks."
For many this situation is perhaps somewhat misunderstood. Yes, there are alleged ticket touts and bot accounts in operation. The touts in particular are described by the Arsenal Supporters' Trust's Tim Payton as "very organised".
However, there also is the reality that the Emirates Stadium has only enough tickets for silver and red members to purchase. There are considerably more members than there are seats to buy and there is never a guarantee that getting a membership will mean you will be able to get a ticket.
It is a consequence of the team’s performances and the subsequent title race they’re involved in. Tickets on Tuesday, April 11 sold out in record time after supporters were told after just minutes that the allocation for the game had been filled.
Fans will likely see tickets being advertised on other websites in the run-up to the game but the club has a strict policy that they reiterated to football.london when asked: "We remind all supporters that tickets for our matches are only available through official Arsenal channels.
"Anyone buying tickets from unofficial outlets runs the risk of being denied access to the match, paying heavily inflated prices and receiving counterfeit or duplicated tickets.”
Solutions to the problem have come in the form of ballot proposals. Empty seats are still seen inside the ground despite the huge demand and rapid sell-out of tickets; it is one of the biggest issues facing the club at the moment and seemingly will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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