Poms fume as ticket code leak allows Matildas fans into England zone for World Cup semi-final

English fans are blowing up after cheeky Australians pinched their ‘exclusive’ tickets allocated to them for the Women’s World Cup semi-final.

World Cup semi-final tickets designed for English fans to sit in an English-only end of the stadium have been snapped up by keen Australians after a unique code was leaked on social media.

With most World Cup fixtures notoriously difficult to get tickets to, and the FIFA resale platform’s inability to cope with demand one of the biggest bugbears of supporters so far this tournament, fans have been seen to go to any lengths for tickets to Women’s World Cup fixtures.

An official England supporters’ allocation of just under 2000 tickets, representing a small fraction of the 75,784 FIFA-sanctioned capacity of Stadium Australia, was publicised by the Football Association (the English governing body) on their website.

The post said that fans could use the access code “LIONESS” to gain access to the allocation, which allowed fans to buy as many as ten tickets at a time.

The post remains the top result on Google for the phrase “Lionesses active supporters group” at the time of writing.

Having been discovered by popular Australian supporters Facebook group, the Matildas and A-League Women Supporters Group, the tickets were readily snapped up by keen Australians.

The leak was quickly plugged however, with the code not able to be accessed by fans by Monday morning.

The demand for this Women’s World Cup has been unprecedented, with the ratings for the Matildas’ heartstopping quarter-final victory against France placing it as the most-watched event since Cathy Freeman won gold in the 400m at the 2000 Olympics.

England fans were livid at missing out, with one fan declaring it made them “rage”.

“I’m actually raging,” the fan wrote on social media.

“I hope anyone that has a ticket in those sections gives (Australians) as much s*** as possible! So livid.”

Matildas Fans pack into the FIFA Womens World Cup Quarter final match between Australia and France at Brisbane Stadium. Picture Lachie Millard

Australian fans, in contrast, were bragging about having secured tickets and looked forward to creating as unwelcoming an atmosphere as possible for the Lionesses in hopes of spurring the Matildas on to a maiden World Cup final.

“Me and my friend are flying down from Brisbane … proudly going to be wearing our Matildas gear,” wrote one fan on social media.

News Corp’s Lachlan McKirdy looked forward to the antics between supporters of the two teams.

“Next we’re gonna have fireworks at 2am outside the England team hotel,” McKirdy wrote.

“The battle is on.”

Football writer Mike Mifsud joked it was payback for historical English colonial sins.

“England suddenly changing their tune on land rights,” Mifsud wrote.

Expat writer Patrick Hargreaves said it was revenge for the English scheduling the last fixture between the two sides at the 17,250 capacity Brentford Community Stadium - the men’s home ground is at Wembley Stadium.

“What you get for putting the friendly on at Brentford,” Hargreaves wrote.

Jessica Lees is a Matildas diehard who got tickets to the semi-final through the leaked code, and told news.com.au she has no regrets.

“I’m still traumatised from missing out on Taylor Swift tickets, so my moral compass for getting tickets to things I want to see isn’t always pointing due north,” Lees said, referring to the mad scramble for tickets to the pop star’s Eras tour that stopped offices across the nation earlier this year.

“I would do basically anything to be a part of this historic moment. I’ve never seen Australia get around football as much as this and I want to be a part of it.”

The post on the England Football website detailing how to use the code.

Lees said the fact that the code was poorly protected was possibly emblematic of broader lingering attitudes to women’s football.

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles. If they (the FA) really wanted to keep the ticket code under wraps, they could have organised some form of limited-access pre-sale, but maybe this shows people didn’t quite realise how much people cared about this World Cup,” she said.

“I think the fact that the code wasn’t better protected shows maybe football federations are still underestimating the reach of this Women’s World Cup.

“I know we have a big British expat population here – oh well.”

Despite the disappointment of English fans, Lees says the demand for tickets and the hype around the Matildas is only a positive thing, not only for football, but for women in sport in general.

“It’s brought back my love for football, and as someone who gave up playing as a teenage girl because I wasn’t really encouraged to keep playing, it’s inspired me to join a six-a-side team for the first time in many years,” she said.

“The silver living of all of this is how much people have rallied around the Tillies and realise that it is actually a watershed moment in Australian sporting history.

“I hope that it continues post-World Cup, that people keep supporting the A-Leagues and really get in at a grassroots level and keep supporting women in sport.”

England fans have turned out in droves to support the Lionesses this World Cup. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

Matildas midfielder Tameka Yallop said the team felt “so supported and so united” in pursuing a historic home World Cup, and said it bred confidence in their abilities to get the job done against England.

“We’ve just built an amazing environment right now within our team, that we all feel so supported and so united in what we’re doing and the journey that we’re on, that there isn’t really any other option,” Yallop told press ahead of the semi-final.

“In football, the World Cup, it’s the pinnacle.

“And for it to be at home as well, this will probably be the biggest game in all of our careers and all of our lifetime of playing football. So this game is on its own little platform.”

The Matildas play England at Stadium Australia at 8pm AEST on Wednesday, August 16.

Originally published as Poms fume as ticket code leak allows Matildas fans into England zone for World Cup semi-final