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Liverpool Football Club has suspended its member ticket sales until further notice after suffering a cyber attack.
Tickets for home Premier League matches in the first half of the season went on sale earlier this week to members who had attended at least 13 league fixtures during the last campaign.
However, supporters were left frustrated as the sale period was paused due to what the club described as “a serious technical issue with the ticketing system”.
An initial plan had been drawn up to reopen the sale later on Wednesday (July 17), the same day of the attack, but it had to be abandoned.
A sale to members who were successful in the ticket ballot the day after was also shelved.
Liverpool has emailed fans affected to offer an apology and an explanation. The message stated that the English football club was targeted by a “sustained, sophisticated bot attack… different in nature to those we have experienced before.”
An investigation has been launched to understand how the attack targeted Liverpool’s ticketing system.
The motive behind it is unknown, whether it was simply to cause disruption or to try to purchase tickets fraudulently.
The system is run by a third party which is now set to install additional security measures before a date is announced for the ticket sale to safely reopen in the coming weeks.
“This is hugely disappointing and frustrating as we have made a number of significant improvements to our supplier’s ticketing system to try and prevent this type of cybercrime,” the email from Liverpool’s ticketing team read.
“We will continue to work with our fan groups to improve the selling processes and systems and will consider all options that will eventually deliver the experience our fans deserve.
“We are sorry we have not managed to prevent unacceptable fraudulent activity which has impacted our genuine and valued supporters.”
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