Manchester City have taken action after a number of Galatasaray supporters obtained home end tickets during a recent Champions League tie.
Manchester City ended the opening phase of the Champions League on a high, defeating Galatasaray to secure a spot in the top eight.
However, the match was poorly attended and worse still, many of the supporters occupying the home end belonged to the away team.
This caused security concerns, which resulted in unrest across certain sections of the stadium. As a result of these incidents, Manchester City have decided to take action.
Manchester City ban fans from purchasing match tickets
An official club investigation has found that 85 per cent of the tickets used by Galatasary fans in the home section came from Cityzen matchday members. A further 12 per cent were bought by season ticket holders, while the UEFA allocation made up the remaining three per cent.
Man City have responded to this by identifying and suspending 253 account holders, meaning they will be unable to buy tickets to both home and away matches.
The club did make efforts to prevent such a situation from occurring by introducing criteria which meant that only members who had been to three previous fixtures could attend.
However, this proved ineffective and with more suspensions handed out, the number of banned accounts for ticketing misuse has risen to 1400 this season. This is almost double the amount recorded during the previous campaign.
Man City will hope to avoid this situation in the Champions League last 16
It is understandable that there was less interest in City’s match against Galatasary, but ticket sales from actual fans of the club should be up in the next round.
There is a possibility that Man City will face Real Madrid in the last 16 and that type of fixture is bound to draw a large crowd.
Even if this is not the case, the club will continue to take action against those selling on their tickets and perhaps the offenders will eventually get the message.
