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The Australian Football League has warned fans to be vigilant when buying tickets for the Grand Final after thousands of official barcodes were said to be illegally downloaded in a digital security breach.
The organisation has been forced to cancel and reissue corporate tickets to Saturday’s (September 28) match after discovering the hack earlier this week, with Victoria Police now launching an investigation.
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon claims that the extent of the breach was “in the small four figures”.
“The grand final is a sellout, and if any tickets will be getting sold, if you’re looking to purchase tickets now, be really careful about that, because there is a chance that they won’t be authorised tickets,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.
Grand Final hospitality experiences cost up to A$5,995 (£3,000/$4,100/€3,600) per person while the cheapest adult tickets are priced at A$155.
Yesterday (September 24), the AFL said that a police investigation was underway over the “unauthorised access to the AFL Event Office tickets”, and Dillon said the matter has been dealt with quickly.
“We alerted Victoria Police as soon as we became aware of it,” he said. “It was through a third-party provider who looks after some of the corporate hospitality packages.”
The match is set to be contested between the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
It is the first edition of the event since 2006 to feature two interstate teams and the league is expecting to achieve a sell-out.
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