We brought you news on Friday of fans getting emails offering them Newcastle United v Qarabag tickets.
My mate is a Newcastle United member and this landed in his inbox on Friday afternoon:
‘A limited number of tickets are available! Following the initial ticketing phase for the Qarabag FK (H) fixture, we now have a limited number of seats available in the Leazes Stand Level 7, due to returns from the visiting club. As you were unsuccessful in the initial ballot, these tickets have been offered to you on a first-come first-serve basis.’
My mate said that he did indeed get knocked back in that latest Champions League ballot BUT he did get Newcastle United v Qarabag tickets in the later queue sale for members.
I used his membership log-in (only those getting an email from the club were at that point able to view these tickets and buy them) and had a look on the ticketing site and there appeared to be around 500 of these Newcastle United v Qarabag tickets had been made available.
They were indeed where the visiting fans normally go. Up in Level 7 of the Leazes End, Qarabag fans appeared to still have the last three sections that are closest the East Stand, these are L7K, L7L and L7M.
The tickets made available on Friday were in L7H and L7J, if you are looking from the pitch, those are the two sections next to the three that remained for Qarabag fans up in Level 7.
I had a quick look on Saturday just before 1pm, to see if the the club had managed to sell these 500+ tickets.
Not only have they not all sold out, there are actually now 1,000+ Newcastle v Qarabag FK seats now unsold!
Section L7K has also now been made available to Newcastle United fans, with only L7L and L7M making up the official away section. I think this is now it, as I am pretty sure that to ensure separate exits for home and away fans, those two sections can only be available for away fans, even if the away side brings a handful of supporters.
There are now season ticket holders also putting their tickets up for resale, whether because they can’t now make it, or think that with the crushing 6-1 win in the first leg they’d rather get their money back.
Al of the unsold tickets now appear to be available to all Newcastle United members.
Hopefully we see all of these currently unsold tickets snapped up, but at £70 for adult NUFC members, it remains to be seen.
I think the club have shot themselves in the foot here.
For a number of home Champions League matches in the Swiss League stage, the club left it very late before putting up for sale to members, unsold blocks of tickets due to the away fans not buying them.
I can’t help but think that leaving it so late was a bit of a push for publicity and added drama, getting members/fans excited at this late availability of some tickets for matches where there was overwhelming demand.
The queue sale for members for this Qarabag match was last Monday, I’m sure by that point the away club would have had to have committed to how many blocks of tickets they were taking. So if Newcastle United had added these tickets on Monday to that queue sale, before the 6-1 away win in the first leg, they would have all been snapped up.