I already got and email saying that my tickets are cancelled and they are initializing my refund request
This is the full article of Martyn Ziegler (The Times): ”Only home fans are expected to be allowed into group matches for this summer’s delayed Euro 2020 tournament and very limited numbers of travelling supporters will be permitted for the latter stages of the competition, it can be revealed. Uefa is considering the drastic move of refunding all the tickets already sold and starting the process again from scratch once the venues have confirmed how many fans they will be permitted by their national governments. Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter The move follows a meeting on Wednesday of tournament organisers from the 12 host countries, which include England, Scotland and Ireland, with many of the representatives pushing Uefa to take steps to prevent international travel by supporters because of the coronavirus pandemic. The strong message from the representatives to Uefa was that it would be much easier to persuade governments to allow supporters into venues if only domestic fans were permitted. Sources in the meeting have told The Times that the Football Association’s plan for Wembley Stadium — which is hosting England’s three group games, a roundof-16 match, both semi-finals and the final — is for the venue to be 30 per cent to 35 per cent full, based on one-metre social distancing. However, organisers have been told that even a slight relaxation in social distancing requirements could mean that Wembley is up to 50 per cent full — which would allow 45,000 supporters to attend — and that the extra fans could be accommodated with as little as three weeks’ notice. FA chiefs are understood to have told Uefa they would ideally like to have some fans, perhaps 2,000 or 3,000, for the semi-finals and final, travelling from abroad by maintaining bubbles. They would be flown into London on charter flights, taken straight to the stadium and then back to the airport directly after the match, with minimal contact with the local population. A decision on all the plans regarding supporters will have to be agreed by the governments and will depend on how the pandemic develops between now and the start of April, and on the impact of the vaccination programmes in the different countries. More than 1.5 million of the three million tickets for the tournament had already been sold, though many will have been returned to Uefa before this week’s deadline. At almost all the venues, with the exception of Baku in Azerbaijan, where Wales are due to play two group games, the demand for tickets had outstripped supply. With all the stadiums likely to have their capacities restricted, Uefa will either have to organise a ballot system to decide which tickets would remain valid or refund all tickets and start again — the latter option is viewed as a much simpler task. “Either way, people are going to be angry they have missed out,” said a source. A few weeks ago there was an expectation that two or three of the 12 hosts would pull out of the tournament and that England and Scotland might be asked to stage extra games, but the likelihood of that has diminished considerably. Indeed, all the venues in this week’s meeting were said to be “bullish” in their determination to put the matches on. Although there are considerable complications around moving the 24 competing teams, plus officials and Uefa staff, around 12 different countries that may all have different restrictions, the numbers involved are relatively small and can be maintained in bubbles. That is a far cry from the Tokyo Olympics, for example, where nearly 20,000 athletes and officials would have to be accommodated in the city at some stage during the Games this summer. There are also some benefits of the 12-country Euro 2020 format when it comes to supporters: nine of the host nations have qualified for the finals, which means that at least some fans of those teams should be able to see their countries play matches, without having to travel. The choice of Wembley as the venue for the semi-final and final has also paid off for Uefa. For a start, the 17,000 Club Wembley seats provide the best opportunity for socially distanced hospitality and VIP seats in the whole of Europe, an important factor when it comes to revenue. The stadium also has generously spaced concourses and seating, which again help to maximise the number of fans who can be permitted. Furthermore, the cosmopolitan nature of London, with its many international communities, means that whichever teams reach the semi-finals and final it is likely that there will be a large number of potential fans already living in the capital. The Scottish FA has also pointed out to Uefa that the country has a large Croatian community — Croatia are playing two group games at Hampden Park in Glasgow. The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, last night announced that Dr Daniel Koch, Switzerland’s former head of communicable diseases, who is seen as a key figure in the country’s swift response to the first wave of coronavirus infections last year, is to be the medical adviser for the Euros. “Dr Koch has vast experience in the field of public health and communicable diseases,” Ceferin said. “His expertise will be invaluable in helping Uefa, host associations and host cities to navigate a path to maximising spectator attendance at Euro 2020 this summer.” My opinion: - every city (or every federation, as you like) will have its own ”offer” (based on discussion with national governments). Like I already said, Bucharest will try to ”offer” a 50-60% capacity. - very probable, the idea with local fans is valid for London. In UK the situation is not good at this moment and (very probable) the authorities are reluctant to accept foreign fans. Maybe this will be the "offer" of London: 30% capacity and only local fans. But, I repeat, every city will have its own conditions, its own ”offer”, which will be known at the start of april. - last summer (2020) a lot of romanians went in Greece, Croatia and even Italy. I remember some photos with a lot of people on romanian beaches. Don't tell me the situation regarding (international) travelling will be worst in 2021 than in 2020. In this moment millions of people are already vaccinated (including me).
I don't question the legitimacy of a Times story from a reputable writer as I am sure it is probably well sourced and researched, but I am starting to get tired of UEFA somewhat leaking stories without any announcement/information from them. I understand that things are fluid and not official, but having some actual information (other than the UEFA line of "we are committed to hosting the Euros as planned") rather than stories with anonymous sources would be so much better when they are forcing supporters to make calls on tickets based on rumors and their own thoughts. I think someone said it before here, but if this is going to be the plan going forward, the ticket refund this week screams of "we want you to return your tickets, so less people can be angry with us when we take all of your tickets and redo it all." Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if this current plan will change again next month, which I could understand given the circumstances if they gave us some actual transparency along the way.
"Uefa is considering the drastic move of refunding all the tickets already sold and starting the process again from scratch once the venues have confirmed how many fans they will be permitted by their national governments". If UEFA decide to start the process again I'm not clear if that means that only those people who currently have confirmed tickets can reapply for the exact same matches or can anyone now apply. It would be pretty crap if you have jumped through all the hoops to apply previously, have had your money held by UEFA for 18 months + and then lose your tickets to someone who has either applied now for the first time or who was not successful in the previous ballot or FCFS sales. I think most people understand there will be limited attendances and you may lose some or all of your tickets but hopefully not in this way ? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding how this might work though ?
If these reports are true, and tickets I bought well over a year ago are taken off me against my wishes, and I'm then expected to apply again from scratch with everyone else ( including those people who couldn't be bothered to find out when the tickets originally became available) then UEFA as far as I'm concerned can go to hell. I'm not going to again go through all the aggro, hassle, time I've had to go through to get these tickets in the first place. With nowhere near capacity attendances being expected for the games, I don't think it will be anywhere near as good as the previous 6 major tournaments I've been to anyway.
In some ways a "hard reset" seems fair in the sense it doesn't disadvantage people who were railroaded into giving up tickets without having all the facts available to them, but having personally been through the torture of four rounds of application processes plus gone to the trouble and expense of joining a supporters club to obtain my albeit now surrendered tickets, I can sympathise with those who'd be furious with UEFA if their tickets are snatched away. The more this story develops the more it seems the changes to terms and conditions imposed by UEFA were less about setting things up to favour one preferred scenario such as hosting solely in England or Russia and more about hedging their bets so they can implement the version of the tournament which appears most viable come Spring. Whether it's reduced attendances or moving venues it seems UEFA have all the angles covered to do as they please without supporters realistically having any recourse.
I personally don't get the reason on why they have to stick to this twelve-venue plan at this point. I can't imagine that the UK and Russia (especially the latter) both told them that there is no chance they will host by themselves. The Euros being spread out across the continent was all to maximize money and make it have a more continental feel. I just feel like they should punt this concept to 2024 or 2028 and try again after the mess of 2020 because their two big aims are not happening this year. The current tentative plan is really a joke to the point that I kinda wish that I could just refund all of my tickets now to not have to deal with UEFA again until 2023. I can't fault them for only wanting the residents of the host attending due to the situation if they said that might be an option anytime after March 2020. The fact that they are even considering taking tickets away from people that might have had them for 18 months is appalling. Especially if people who live in a host country going to the matches at the host venue are included in that. Additionally, that plan of letting in a few thousand foreign supporters in for the semis and finals as long as they are willing to be treated like prisoners is just so wrong and comical at the same time. I probably would not be as upset by what their current plan is if they did not leak it just days after the ticket refund. It feels like a big middle finger to present ticketholders and to people who gave up tickets because of the uncertainty.
I may be wrongly giving UEFA the benefit of the doubt here but I wonder if this is down to their ticketing system/infrastructure that is already in place coupled with lazy journalism to describe the reallocation of tickets simply as "starting from scratch". Its understandably unlikely that UEFA expected to go through this whole process and now have to change attendance levels for 51 matches with the complexity of all the different categories needing to be applied. So they would need to run a new ballot and then refund those not successful. In my opinion that may not be very straightforward given the stage current ticket holders are in the ticketing system. What may be much easier is to start from scratch solely with current ticket holders. They could refund everyone but then re-use their existing processes and algorithms to rerun the original ballot just for current ticket holders with the new attendance levels applied. So it may just be a technical/process reason for this as otherwise I don't see there is any significant advantage to UEFA of opening a ballot to everyone again with no priority applied as you would be back to 10 million + ticket applications. They would likely have lots of unhappy customers and would not really sell any more tickets than they could by other means so I'm not sure I would understand the rationale otherwise.
No named sources, it could just be somebody's pet theory. Something like it will probably be one of the options but it's way too early to tell how effective combined vaccination and lockdown will be. All these miserable predictions in the media are beginning to dent my optimism though, think I'll boycott it for a bit.
Yes I agree...could be time for a break/lie down from thinking about all the different scenarios and better to come back to it in a few months time when plans will be more concrete.
Better to cancel some tickets than to cancel all tickets and restart the painful process. In the 1st case u upset a group of pple, in the second u upset everyone !
It is really unlikly to cancel everything and start from scratch..how can we explain that they are offering people to return tickets from now..it doesnt make sense at all..they could simply cancel all applocations and basta without going through the last 3 week's process
I honestly think we have to wait and see. I seriously doubt they'll make a decision like that with the tournament more than 4 months away. The situation is so volatile. I do hope to be vaccinated and able to travel by then, but we'll see....
That's my issue with UEFA right now. They made ticketholders choose more than four months away, but they can't provide us any possible scenarios or any information other than "we are planning on having the tournament with all twelve venues." They also punted them making a decision on the venues to April after the ticket refund.
I appreciate the timing is not deal for those making travel plans but you didn't have to choose. They offered a refund to those for want one. I don't think they can be expected to have open ended refunds. I've held most of mine. Of course there is a risk I will have tickets for games that I cannot attend and cannot offload but I think this is unlikely. I still expect UEFA to take back some (possibly all) of my tickets. I hope I am wrong. They will most likely have at least another opportunity to get a refund. I really want to go and ultimately I will either get tickets or a refund. I don't believe there will be too many unused tickets. It is all guesswork though.
I definitely agree that I had to make the choice this past week and that choice was on me, but UEFA also could have waited to make supporters choose to give back their tickets. What is the harm in doing this in late-February/March, for example? I don't expect them to give us an open ended time frame to return them, but they have also provided us no real clarity on any type of plan other than it's still going to be twelve hosts. I really want to go myself and that's why I only returned two of my five planned matches. The reason I returned those two is because I didn't want to get stuck with them in case everything goes as planned, UEFA offers no further refunds, and I can't go to the match because of entry/quarantine issues as I am not an EU or UK resident. I am relatively comfortable with my decision to return, but I think the whole thing is BS for people that felt like they have to give back all their tickets now because of all of the uncertainty if I am honest. Your last line is totally correct about it being guesswork, but UEFA wants an allowance for the guesswork but not giving ticketholders the same treatment. It would have been much more acceptable if UEFA even said "you can return your tickets now, but we will have one more opportunity to do so before the tournament." I am sure I was not alone in reading too much into their "you can return your tickets if a venue is moved over 50 km" sentence and was researching info to see if I think I can get into this country and that country. It's just crap to me, especially with how they handled the postponement well. But, like others said, I probably should take a break from reading about it and wait until UEFA actually announces anything.
Just an idea, but I wonder if UEFA does something like have everyone who already has a ticket to a match to upload proof of vaccination (e.g. picture of an official vaccination card), otherwise their ticket gets canceled. Then, have batches of sales where they let vaccinated folks buy them first (unallocated seats, of course), then if there are significant number of tickets left over, they implement a socially distanced seating plan and see how many more they can sell under that plan. I think this might be the way to generate the most revenue...see how many matches they can sell the whole place out safely with vaccinated fans, and then implement socially distanced plans for the rest.
Agree with previous posters that it is time to wait and not put ourselves in knots over various scenarios. I am in Canada and I have tix to both semis and the R16 at Wembley. This was a retirement gift to myself as I have never been to an international game and got lucky with the lottery. As I am under 65, I likely will not have had my vaccine but with constant mask wearing, social distancing and avoiding bars and restaurants I feel fairly safe. I have not booked any flights or accommodation nor will I until mid-April until I see what UEFA does and how the covid situation is doing in the UK. Waiting patiently and being cautiously optimistic and I keep telling myself to stop coming to this forum!
It’s like winning the lottery and then having to give it back I got 4x final 4x eng v Croatia 4x eng v Scot 2x last 16 2 quarters and 1 semi final will be absolutely gutted to hand those back
Has anyone who requested a refund, actually got their money back yet from uefa? I know they said they would be processing refunds until the end of the month, but would be nice to see people post when they actually get their money to get an idea when they are starting.
I got email and it says: We will initiate a refund to your credit card / Alipay account until the end of February 2021.
No not yet. From the resale last year in Feb, it took approximately 3 weeks from receiving the invoice to the refund on my credit card statement, so I'd expect something similar here too.
For those worried about getting vaccinated in time, and assuming you don't have £10,000 plus flight and accommodation expenses to spare for queue jumping in the UAE, Pfizer's response to the rumour gives some hope. With production getting ramped up and new vaccines heading for approval, some only needing a single jab, there has to be a chance of getting a rush job for a reasonable price by June. Pfizer said in a statement it was not supplying its Covid-19 vaccine for use outside government programmes. “During this pandemic stage, our contracts are with governments and supra-government organisations and we are providing doses according to their preferred channel and designated vaccination locations, as per established agreements and following relevant regulatory authorisations,” it said in a statement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cine-offered-to-elite-few-in-uae-tourist-deal