Six Nations: supporters angry at ticketing failures for France-England in Lyon

For this 2024 Six Nations Tournament, Fabien Galthié's Blues are touring France, relocating their meetings to the provinces since the Stade de France is currently being prepared for the next Olympic Games in Paris. After facing Ireland in Marseille and Italy in Lille, the French XV will challenge England, at the end of this edition, on March 16, at the Groupama Stadium in Décines-Charpieu, in the suburbs of Lyon. A match at the top which aroused strong expectations among French supporters, despite disappointing recent results.

The ticketing set up by the FFR for this Crunch experienced numerous failures. And leaves a lot of people frustrated. The Federation had received no less than 240,000 requests to obtain precious sesames, while the Rhone enclosure can only accommodate 60,000 people. In the wake of the enormous enthusiasm born during the last World Cup, the fervor around the Blues remains unabated.

Originally, the tickets were to go on sale on February 19, but ultimately, it was this Tuesday that the online sale took place. A priori, only some of those registered received the email Monday evening warning of the opening of the ticket office the next day at 10 a.m. All with less than three weeks until the game! “Never seen such a grotesque organization for such an event,” raged a group of Clermont supporters. Problem: the FFR alert system then experienced incredible failures, some were found stuck in endless online queues, others did not receive an alert at all to warn them of the opening of the ticket office.

"What hell ! An email arrived to announce the sale (on 4 registered addresses). No communication about the sale, a shaky queue, ejected from the site at 9:55 a.m., then after queue which goes up to 97% then suddenly: connection lost, back to 0%. In short, from the great @FranceRugby,” railed a user on X.

And another scathing: “I've been on the page since 12 a.m., everything is fine until 9:53 a.m. and now I'm put in the queue with 0%... What a shame @FranceRugby, 10 a.m. on your page for being overtaken by people who arrived at 9 a.m...." For Cédric, it's "scandalous, nothing was ready for everything to go smoothly, 4 hours of waiting for nothing at all, a totally bugged queue , you are putting us to shame, test your tools before using them, thank you!” Another supporter of the Blues does not mince her words: “Your France/England ticket office is a shame! Since 10:44 am I have been 100% blocked without being able to access the sale! I haven't touched anything or refreshed or paused! A friend arrived later in line and was able to buy tickets. You are truly incapable.”

The Blues played at Groupama Stadium against Italy (60-7) during the last World Cup. But, for all matches played in France, ticketing was then managed by World Rugby. At the time, problems in the ticketing system put in place by the international federation had already been pointed out. Despite all these failures, the Olympique Lyonnais stadium will be full on March 16 for the clash against the XV de la Rose. But the laborious procedure will have left many unhappy...

SEE ALSO – The superb victorious goal in the 92nd minute from Takumi Minamino during Lens-Monaco on February 25 (1-1)