By Wayne Williams

Copyright techradar

Skip to main content

Tech Radar Pro

Tech Radar Gaming

Close main menu

the business technology experts

België (Nederlands)

Deutschland

North America

US (English)

Australasia

New Zealand

View Profile

Search TechRadar

Expert Insights

Website builders

Web hosting

Best web hosting
Best office chairs
Best website builder
Best antivirus
Expert Insights

Don’t miss these

How to Watch Football
How to watch Arsenal vs Man City: live stream Premier League 2025/26 game, TV channels, preview, team news

800,000 users at risk after MAJOR hack at betting giants — IP addresses, email addresses, and online activity compromised

VPS servers hijacked into malware proxies – here’s how to stay safe

Millions at risk as global network of over 5,000 fake pharmacy websites uncovered by security researchers — here’s how to stay safe

AI Platforms & Assistants
The Premier League Companion is a new AI-powered tool for soccer fans, but it’s useless – at least for now

Fake TikTok shops found spreading malware to unsuspecting victims – here’s how to stay safe

VPN Services
Brits are turning from VPNs to proxies to resist age verification – but their data may be at risk

VPN Privacy & Security
Cloudflare cracks down on UK piracy – and VPN users are getting caught in the crossfire

Hunting for early Prime Day deals? Beware, scammers have set up thousands of fake Amazon sites – here’s what to look out for

Criminals and scammers are using hacked websites and expired domain names to ‘poison’ ChatGPT with spammy recommendations – here’s how to stay safe

Just a tap, and it’s gone – experts warn scammers are now loading your stolen details onto burner phones in devious “ghost tapping” scams

UK government says a new AI tool helped it recover almost £500 million in fraud losses – and now it’s going global

Bitcoin’s record highs spark a surge in crypto scams

Smarter than the scam: how optimized AI is reshaping fraud detection

Beyond romance fraud: The rising threat of social media scams

Ticket bots blamed as Liverpool joins Chelsea and Arsenal in cancelling hundreds of thousands of fake accounts used to buy and sell tickets

Wayne Williams

28 September 2025

The clubs hope anti-bot tech, including multi-factor authentication, can help

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Gonin / Shutterstock)

Premier League football clubs cancel hundreds of thousands of fake accounts targeting tickets
Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea all step up bans and block resale groups and bots
Overseas resellers are using proxy services and bot software to flood systems

Premier League football clubs are stepping up action against ticket touting, cancelling hundreds of thousands of fake accounts and banning fans found to be involved in resale scams.

The BBC reports Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have all carried out large-scale investigations to tackle the problem, which often rely on bots and proxy services.
Liverpool football club said it closed 145,000 fake ticket accounts in the past two years, and handed out 1,114 lifetime bans last season alone.

You may like

800,000 users at risk after MAJOR hack at betting giants — IP addresses, email addresses, and online activity compromised

VPS servers hijacked into malware proxies – here’s how to stay safe

Millions at risk as global network of over 5,000 fake pharmacy websites uncovered by security researchers — here’s how to stay safe

Football bots
Investigators said the rise in bans followed manipulation of automated software and the discovery of mass use of burner phones used to conceal identities.

Arsenal told BBC Sport it had cancelled nearly 74,000 accounts this season and banned more than 7,000 memberships.
Chelsea said it blocked over 350,000 attempted purchases from bots. Recent research found bots now account for more than half of all internet traffic.
The action of these three top flight clubs highlight the scale of the problem, with resellers using overseas platforms to profit from inflated prices.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
The BBC investigation found touts running operations on an industrial scale, with companies using memberships, bot software and proxy servers to buy tickets across Premier League clubs.
These are then resold through websites based abroad, leaving supporters at risk of paying well over face value or buying tickets that don’t work at the turnstiles.
Liverpool said it had also shut down 162 social media groups with over one million members that were involved in ticket resales.

You may like

800,000 users at risk after MAJOR hack at betting giants — IP addresses, email addresses, and online activity compromised

VPS servers hijacked into malware proxies – here’s how to stay safe

Millions at risk as global network of over 5,000 fake pharmacy websites uncovered by security researchers — here’s how to stay safe

On matchdays, it carried out nearly 400 targeted checks to block suspicious accounts from entering.
Arsenal and Chelsea have adopted similar measures, with new technology including multi-factor authentication and encrypted barcodes being introduced across the league.
The Premier League has urged fans to exercise extreme caution when buying from unauthorized third-party sites.
While the resale of football tickets is illegal in the UK, police aren’t doing much about it. Only 12 arrests were made for touting across the entire top six tiers of English football last season.
You might also like

These are the best proxy sites you can use now
Plane tickets are getting more expensive, and AI bots may well be the reason why
The majority of visitors to online shops and retailers are now bots, not humans

Wayne Williams

Social Links Navigation

Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

800,000 users at risk after MAJOR hack at betting giants — IP addresses, email addresses, and online activity compromised

VPS servers hijacked into malware proxies – here’s how to stay safe

Millions at risk as global network of over 5,000 fake pharmacy websites uncovered by security researchers — here’s how to stay safe

The Premier League Companion is a new AI-powered tool for soccer fans, but it’s useless – at least for now

Fake TikTok shops found spreading malware to unsuspecting victims – here’s how to stay safe

Brits are turning from VPNs to proxies to resist age verification – but their data may be at risk

Latest in Security

Watch out – hackers are using AI to make phishing emails even more convincing

Nearly 150,000 patient records exposed in major healthcare data breach – here’s what we know

This devious malware has jumped from Meta over to Google Ads and YouTube to spread – here’s how to stay safe

Microsoft flags dangerous XCSSET macOS malware targeting developers – so be on your guard

US Government tells agencies to patch Cisco firewalls immediately, or face attack

“AI security is identity security” – how Okta is weaving agents into the security fabric

Latest in News

YouTube Music is testing a new feature that sounds a lot like Spotify’s AI DJ

New Samsung Galaxy Z Tri-fold leaks hint at key software and camera zoom features

You can now use Google’s viral Nano Banana AI directly in Photoshop

ICYMI: the week’s 7 biggest tech stories from Apple’s response to ‘Scratchgate’ and the ROG Xbox Ally’s price reveal

Is the DJI Mini 5 Pro really a legal nightmare? Here’s what the world’s big drone regulators told me

Quordle hints and answers for Sunday, September 28 (game #1343)

LATEST ARTICLES

Driving us mad – the 6 most annoying EV innovations that no-one asked for

Qualcomm’s most powerful CPU ever will target AMD’s Ryzen AI+ 395 with 128GB onboard LPDDR5X memory – while Intel has only 32GB integrated memory to contend with

Xiaomi’s shiny new open earbuds fix one massive problem with this kind of headphone design

I love this brilliant macOS Tahoe change – and I can’t be the only one

Quick! Don’t miss your chance to get a free iPhone 17 Pro, iPad, and Apple Watch at Verizon

TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

Contact Future’s experts

Terms and conditions

Privacy policy

Cookies policy

Advertise with us

Web notifications

Accessibility Statement

Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait…