Football in Istanbul

Galatasaray vs Kobenhavn. This was my first Champions League match. 47,000 rabid fans, all but six were chain-smoking throughout. The atmosphere was as good as Boca Juniors and as loud as anything I've ever heard.

When I found out there would be a Champions League match in Istanbul I knew I had to try and get tickets. My research was showing how difficult buying tickets and attending matches in Türkiye is, especially for foreigners. While we were in Malta a few days before flying to Türkiye I found tickets available on a third-party site, the European equivalent of Stub Hub. This appeared to be my only option, as buying directly from the club required a Turkish Passolig account.

I still had a few days before the match, but the tickets hadn't been delivered. I asked the hotel staff in Istanbul, if everything looked ok, and they said yes. In Türkiye, you need a Passolig account to buy from the Passo website. Your Passolig account is linked to your passport and your passport is linked to the tickets you buy. Now all I needed was for the Stubhub to transfer the tickets to my Passolig account.

The day before the game I still hadn't received the tickets and after an email they called me, they assured me the tickets would be delivered in time for the game and this is normal in Türkiye. The next day, a few hours before the game, still nothing. I called them again, and they said, to go to the stadium, it was likely the tickets would arrive in the next hour. Galatasary play about an hour and a half by transit from the centre of Istanbul, so we set off.

We met a Dutch fan on his way to the game and he seemed to think all looked good and the tickets would arrive any minute. When we finally arrived at the stadium they still hadn't arrived so the Dutch fellow and us went to the ticket booth to ask. The staff there said the StubHub app was illegal in Türkiye and no tickets would arrive!

I called the Stubhub guys again and they said no, the tickets will come. Meanwhile, we've been talking to a lot of fans, some trying to help, some trying to scam us. There was one very kind man in particular who said his son wasn't going to attend and we could have his ticket for free, but we would still need one ticket. By this time, Lynne was on the phone trying to resolve the issue with StubHub, it was easier for her to call the 800 number from Canada. Lynne was able to talk to someone helpful and they suggested we needed a new Passolig account and to buy tickets from the gate and assign them to the new account. This was easier said than done, though as the passolig site is in Turkish only.

I was disappointed at this point as thousands of fans started arriving and the atmosphere was electric, but it didn't look good for us. Finally, we started talking to a dodgy character who appeared to be a scalper, even though scalping isn't a thing due to the whole Passolig process. This guy suggested we pay him $25 each and he would create a fake Passolig account for each of us, then we could buy two tickets from the team ticket booth. The guy behind the window of the ticket booth indicated this would work, but he could have just as easily been in on the scam.

We waited patiently while the scalper created two fake Passolig accounts, tied them to our passports, and then paid him $50. We then bought two new tickets, which were cheaper than the Stubhub tickets, and proceeded to try and enter the stadium.

Lucky for us we arrived super early, and with all the runaround the game had just started, we had been there for almost two hours and we finally made it through security and were now at the ticket gate. Would the fake Passoligs work?

You can see from the photos, that they worked somehow and we were able to find our seats about 15 minutes late. The noise and the atmosphere were incredible. Galatasary is an incredibly intimidating and tough place to play for opponents. I highly recommend seeing a game in Türkiye, but maybe not the rivalry game between Galatasaray and Beşiktaş