Buying Premier League tickets is hard. Buying tickets for the big clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool is even harder. Groundhopper Guides explains the best options for getting tickets to a game at Old Trafford.

Where seemingly everybody wants to be.

Even though Old Trafford holds more than 70,000 people, Man U sells out every game. So how can a regular person, wanting to visit for the first time, get tickets? Basically, there are three routes:

1. Buy from the club;
2. Buy hospitality from a legit broker;
3. Buy from the secondary market.

Let’s do this in reverse order, so it’s simplest options first.

Buying Tickets from the Secondary Market

Here we’re referring to websites like StubHub, and this is technically illegal. That doesn’t mean you will get screwed, but if you do get screwed you won’t have any recourse other than StubHub.

Some of the 70,000-plus who got tickets to a game at Old Trafford.

Buying Tickets from a Legit Broker

This almost always means buying a “hospitality package,” which is basically a seat plus some kind of benefit like a hotel room, food, drinks, lounge access, stadium tour and so on.

You can also buy hospitality straight from the club on their website.

Buying Hospitality from Groundhopper Guides

We are an official reseller of these packages, and we offer them as part of our consulting and ticket services. Basically, you tell us which game you want to see, we send you a quote, and we go forward from there. Find out more about how this works at the end of this post.

Buying Tickets from Manchester United

This is where it gets difficult and complicated. We will try to keep it simple.

It’s like he’s guarding the gates.

First, you are going to need a club membership; this is £40.50 for a full adult membership (£28.50 for under 16) and £20 (£15 for kids) for a “lite” membership. If all you want is the occasional ticket, a lite membership will do.

Note that for each ticket you want, you will need a membership. Family of four? You need four memberships.

Now, having a membership does not mean you will get tickets, and much less four together. That’s because tickets are allocated in a wacky system that starts with season ticket holders and then proceeds through various levels of membership and loyalty points. The details don’t matter so much as this: If Man U is playing anybody you’ve ever heard of, you won’t get tickets through this system. The people ahead of you in line will snap them all up. If the opponent is kind of a nobody, you might have a chance.

An example from Groundhopper Paul: Late in the 2017/18 season, Man U was playing West Bromwich Albion at home, and I was in Manchester doing research for the book. About a week before the game, I could have had a half-decent seat for £47 — plus £20 for the membership. (They were charging for the membership even though there were only four games left in the season.) So that’s £67, nearly $100, to watch what I assumed would be a boring, routine Man U win. As it turns out, West Brom won, which I really wish I could have seen, but that’s not the point.

Here’s Everything We Know About Buying English Soccer Tickets

The point, and the bottom line, is: If it’s any kind of big game, you’ll never get tickets straight from Man U, and your best bet is a hospitality package. If it’s a tiny opponent, or maybe a game in the FA Cup or League Cup, you’ll have better luck. Just remember that in those Cup games they will play a bunch of reserves that even your kid has never heard of.

More About Groundhopper Guides and English Soccer Tickets & Hospitality

You can read more about us and our hospitality sales here:

• Complete list of clubs where we sell tickets and hospitality
• How are we authorized to sell tickets and hospitality?
• Video: Buying Tickets and Hospitality From Us
• Read Google Reviews of Our Services
• See our refund policy here.
• Find out about our consulting (trip-planning) services and “Groundhop” soccer tours.

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