‘Cyber attack’ sparks ticketing chaos for Bangladesh-Singapore match

What was supposed to be a day of excitement quickly turned into one of confusion and chaos as thousands of football fans were left unable to purchase tickets for the much-anticipated Bangladesh vs Singapore AFC Asian Cup Qualifier match. 

The designated ticketing platform, Tickify, suffered a major server crash just as sales were scheduled to go live Saturday evening — a disruption that both the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) and Tickify later attributed to a cyber attack.

The BFF had initially announced that tickets would be available online from 12 PM, but later rescheduled the release time to 8 PM — a change that only heightened anticipation among fans eager to secure a seat at the stadium. 

However, when the clock struck 8, fans found themselves stuck in a virtual gridlock.

Instead of ticket confirmation pages, users were greeted with error messages, frozen screens, or were unable to access the site altogether. Social media quickly lit up with angry reactions as fans expressed their frustration over being locked out of the system despite waiting all day.

In a late-night update, the BFF acknowledged the issue and blamed a cyber attack for the disruption.

“The Tickify website, designated for ticket sales for the Bangladesh vs Singapore match, has unfortunately been hit by a cyber attack,” the BFF said in an official statement. 

“Tickify and the Bangladesh Football Federation sincerely apologize for the temporary inconvenience.”

Tickify later issued a detailed statement, confirming that their servers were likely targeted in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

“Initial investigations indicate that our system may have been targeted by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, with an unexpected surge of over 150,000 additional requests recorded in a short span of time,” the platform posted on Facebook.

“This abnormal traffic spike significantly affected our platform’s performance.”

The company said its technical team is working “around the clock” to resolve the issue and expressed confidence that a full resolution would be in place within the next 24 hours.

“We take full responsibility for this incident and are actively implementing enhanced security and stability measures to prevent such disruptions in the future,” Tickify added.

But for the fans — many of whom cleared their schedules or stayed glued to their phones all day — the damage was already done. 

With no tickets in hand and no updated sales timeline provided, frustration and confusion continue to mount.