Liverpool hit by cyber attack as club puts Premier League ticket sales on hold and launches investigation

According to The Athletic, tickets for home Premier League games in the first half of the 2024-25 season went on sale on Wednesday to members who had attended 13 or more league matches at Anfield last term. However, a 'serious technical issue with the ticketing system' halted that, with the club later saying there had been a 'sophisticated bot attack' on the Merseyside outfit.

The report adds an investigation to establish how the bot attack - a cyber attack that uses automated scripts - infected the ticketing system has begun. An initial plan to reopen the sale later on Wednesday was shelved and the same was the case on Thursday.

An email from Liverpool's ticketing team, relayed via The Athletic, reads: “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.

“We will continue 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.“

The Athletic states the ticketing system is run by a third party, who will now put extra security measures in place before Liverpool announce a date to safely put the tickets on sale again. That is likely to happen in the coming weeks but it is unclear what the motivation was behind the cyber attack.