Purchasing three tickets for the season opener at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and Tottenham pretty much took an act of God. It was a much different experience than when I bought our first tickets to see them in America 17 years ago.
Waiting several months for the Premier League’s 2022-2023 fixtures to be announced then waiting a few more weeks for Chelsea to signal when tickets would go on sale, was a lesson in patience. Once we finally received the dates, we noticed something called “loyalty points” were needed to purchase tickets. At first, we really didn’t know what loyalty points meant.
I mean we’re loyal. We’ve been watching nearly every Chelsea game each week on TV since 2005 (in fact, we are currently watching one at this very moment!)
Once we understood how loyalty points worked, we knew we had NO shot of getting tickets to the London Derby versus Tottenham. Loyalty points are based on how many games you attended LAST YEAR.
Learning this, I was fired up and frustrated thinking my perhaps once in a lifetime chance to travel to England with my sons to see a game in person might not happen because I didn’t go to any games last year.
Excuse me, Chelsea. I love you. You know this; but, I live in America. It’s not really possible for me to attend multiple games. And…last year we were still in the pandemic. Also, I am a teacher and have little to no money.😂😭
I was angry and didn’t really want to understand why the club would do this; however, once we arrived at Stamford Bridge we really started to understand this policy.
Over the past 20 years, Chelsea, now one of the most valued sports franchises in the world at over 3 billion dollars, has become an English club with a huge international following. With such a worldwide fan base, Chelsea could charge large amounts of money for all of their tickets and price its long time and local supporters right out of seeing their beloved team play. With the loyalty points system in place, season ticket holders and long time fans get placed at the front of the line ahead of the average European, Asian, African, or American fan and family trying to buy tickets online for their vacation.
Visiting several English Championship stadiums this past week and easily purchasing reasonably priced tickets to see games at each of them before we attended the Chelsea vs. Tottenham game, really brought this home for us.
Some of these local clubs, like Luton Town or Stevenage, have been trying for decades to get promoted to the Premier League. Imagine finally making it to the best league in the world where now your opponents each week will be the likes of world famous Manchester United or Arsenal, but after following your team for years, you can’t get any tickets to the games. Imagine all the tickets being bought out by international fans or bots to resell at prices you can’t afford.
As much as I hated the loyalty points situation for me personally, since I was trying desperately to get Chelsea tickets, I understood the point of it. At least, partly.
So, a few days before we flew to England I was still in a quandary. How could I get tickets outside of the loyalty program?
Well, we learned there are a limited number of tickets Chelsea puts aside each game for VIP visitors. You can PAY to have lunch and drinks served to you in a hospitality suite and get amazing views for the game and you don’t need any loyalty points to get them. The only issue is the cheapest ones we could find were nearly $500 each.
With these two ticket purchasing routes, Chelsea takes care of their long time local supporters and any very wealthy international fans that want to pony up to see the Blues. That leaves the average American fan mostly on the sideline.
Unless, he joins a Chelsea in America fan club!
We next learned that Chelsea also allocates a certain number of tickets for each game to international fan clubs. So, when we found that out, we hastily joined the Chelsea in America fan club. This would be our way in!
Nope.
Once we paid our membership dues and received information about their access to tickets, for the very high demand games like Chelsea vs. Tottenham, they too required loyalty points. We needed to be a member of the fan club last year and purchase tickets last year in order to buy some this year. The fan clubs didn’t require as many loyalty points as Chelsea but we had none. At this point, it really felt like attending a match at Stamford Bridge would be an impossibility.
To add to our frustration, Chelsea puts a ton of information on their website about NOT purchasing tickets through outside agencies and any vendors literally outside of the stadium because they could be counterfeit and will not be honored. Any temptation to secure tickets on El Mercado Negro as we used to call it in Argentina, was stymied by Chelsea’s list of 30 websites NOT to use to purchase match tickets from abroad.
(Securing tickets for River Plate at El Monumental in Argentina was easy and cheap.)
With almost no time left before hopping on a 777 to England, I wrote a sad, pleading email to Chelsea directly telling them of my efforts and my desire to create this maybe once in a lifetime experience for my sons and myself. I put it all out there in the email. For my efforts, I received a copy and pasted ticketing policies response from their website basically saying “Sorry mate, Cheers!”
As I tossed my phone aside and went to bed, I lay there thinking about how I could find $1500 to get those VIP tickets. I picked my phone back up and read through the Chelsea response one more time. One line caught my eye I hadn’t seen before. It stated “If there are any tickets remaining after each level of fans with loyalty points from 60 and below has had a chance to purchase, these tickets will go on sale at 11:00 am to Chelsea FC members. But only 1 ticket per member can be purchased.”
That’s it! Our last hope!
First, I needed to become a Chelsea FC member and so did Henry. Jack already had a membership. Then, we had to add each other to our Friends and Family list with Chelsea so we could buy each other’s tickets at one time.
With our dues paid and all three of our member numbers handy, I got on the Chelsea website 30 minutes early and found myself in a virtual waiting room for tickets. Hope was alive!
A message popped up and said if any tickets remained after the loyalty points folks had their chance to buy all morning, they would be made available.
As I waited, I Googled “How long have you waited for Chelsea tickets in a virtual que?” One person replied “8 hours.” Oh boy.
I waited and waited and waited, and finally after about an hour, I was in! A handful of tickets at the very top of the stadium appeared and I was able to get them!
Sometimes through perseverance and persistence, the universe aligns and gives you what you want.
We had 3 Chelsea vs. Tottenham tickets for the opening game at Stamford Bridge!
Next week, in Come on Chelsea Part 3, I can’t wait to share with you how the game went and all we experienced before and after the match. Hope you will join us for that session. Have a good week!