Man Utd confirm 685 season ticket bans as touting investigation sparks furious backlash

Manchester United have removed 685 season tickets following a lengthy and much-criticised investigation into touting at Old Trafford.

Back in August, the club identified 1,617 accounts exhibiting "unusual activity". The holders of those accounts were then contacted and asked to provide explanations for the activity that was deemed suspicious.

This heavy-handed approach sparked a furious backlash among supporters, with many believing that innocent and loyal fans were unfairly being accused. A protest ahead of Sunday's Manchester Derby at Old Trafford has been called over what fan group The 1958 said were sanctions being made without "compelling evidence".

United have now announced the results of their investigation, which allowed fans to appeal to an independent appeals panel. The club said 685 season tickets were revoked, including 499 whereby a ban was upheld by the appeals panel.

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Meanwhile, 468 cases were resolved after the season ticket holder provided information to exonerate themselves. The club have admitted they "did not anticipate the extent" to which fans shared account details "in circumstances they regarded as legitimate" and in those cases no sanctions were imposed.

The club said in a statement: "Bans were issued where there was significant misuse of the ticketing system for financial gain. This included the operation of organised ticketing networks, which were controlling, selling and distributing tickets from hundreds of accounts.

"These actions undermine fair access to tickets for genuine supporters and have no place at Manchester United.

"Our focus now turns to ensuring these tickets are returned to our supporters. All season tickets released through this process will be offered to supporters on the season ticket waiting list."

The club added: "We want to allow any sanctioned ticket holder the opportunity to refer their case to the Independent Football Ombudsman. Therefore, we will wait until after the international break before reallocating season tickets.

"Any seats used on a match-by-match basis before then will be sold at season ticket prices, not matchday prices. The club is not profiting from this process."

The club said 226 accounts received final warnings for breaking rules but not for financial gain, while 238 accounts guilty of further abuses saw their initial season ticket ban reduced to a ban on home ticket forwarding and away match applications.

Speaking before the club's announcement on Friday, Chris Rumfitt, a spokesperson for Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST), summed up the ill feeling among fans.

He told Mirror Football: "If it was a clampdown on touting we would be entirely supportive, because the biggest losers of touting are fans who get exploited and ripped off.

"But what they are calling a clampdown on touting has brought up a huge numbers of match-going fans doing ordinary things match-going fans do, i.e. passing tickets between groups of friends at face value, which people wouldn't consider to be touting.

"There is no question that large number of ordinary fans have been caught up in this because what the club has defined as 'suspicious' included lots of things fans do."

Rumfitt believes the issue has touched such a nerve with supporters that only the botched attempt to form a European Super League five years ago compares to the strength of feeling in the stands.

He added: "The approach the club has taken has been 'ban first, ask questions later'. They've banned people and then asked them to prove that they haven't done anything wrong, which isn't normally how things work in this country. The burden of proof works the other way around.

"There's a massive amount of discontent among all fan groups, it's really united the fans. The way the club has gone about this is completely wrong. It has spread further mistrust."