Fans in disbelief as 45 Newcastle v Barcelona tickets handed to private school in Dundee | OneFootball

Newcastle v Barcelona tickets have dominated recent days.

Newcastle United fans desperate to be at what most supporters will consider the biggest match of the season.

Last week the match by match selling of Newcastle v Barcelona tickets kicked off. In the ballot, a lucky few thousand getting tickets as 100,000+ Newcastle United members entered the ballot.

On Tuesday (9 September 2025) it was the queue sale for Newcastle United members.

When that sale opened at 10am, well over 100,000 Newcastle United members (Adults pay £37 each season and kids £20 to be a member, which you need to be to to enter the ballot and/or the queue sale) were in the queue.

The final few thousand Newcastle v Barcelona tickets were very quickly sold out to those at the front of the queue, over 100,000 behind them in the queue left ‘disappointed’.

Imagine then how these 100,000+ Newcastle United members felt on Tuesday night when this came to light via NUST (Newcastle United Supporters Trust)…

As you can see, 45 tickets handed to the High School of Dundee, which is a private school that currently charges (see here) up to £20,606 (and 40p!) per year for each pupil.

So, 100,000+ Newcastle United members paying £37 (£20 for kids) a year membership end up with no tickets, then find out a coachload of tickets are being given to a random £20k a year school in Dundee.

Quite ironic that it is £20 a year membership for Newcastle United supporting kids who are denied Newcastle v Barcelona tickets, whilst kids in Dundee who aren’t Newcastle fans can get tickets, due to their parents paying £20k a year for the school fees.

As Newcastle United members will tell you, it is a common thing that when you are lucky enough to get tickets via ballots/queue sales. Especially if you end up in the Milburn/Leazes corner, you will time after time see large groups of people, including kids not from Newcastle.

How do you automatically know these people aren’t United Newcastle fans? Well, when United are scoring goals it is quite clear that these are neutrals who have got hold of precious tickets because they don’t react when NUFC score. Even worse, when this happens to be a match against one of a group of certain Premier League clubs, some of these ‘neutrals’ are reacting positively to goals, just not the ones scored by Newcastle United!

If you think this is all exaggeration and this episode is just a one-off with a random school in Scotland.

How about the most recent Champions League match at St James’ Park in December 2023, when if Newcastle United won their final group game against AC Milan they were guaranteed to progress to the knockout stage.

You might recognise this school that got over 50 tickets for that match, on a trip that included coaching at the Academy at…Sunderland.

High School of Dundee official site – 23 December 2023:

Pupils from HSD travelled down south this month for an incredible football-themed trip, which included a training session at Sunderland and a Champions League game!

More than 50 pupils and staff made the trip to Newcastle, where they were given a chance to train with Sunderland coaches at their Beacon of Light training facility.

They then visited the Metrocentre before heading to St James’ Park to watch Newcastle take on AC Milan.

The pupils got the chance to soak in the famous atmosphere as they enjoyed the thrilling match which ended in a 2-1 victory for the Italian side.’

All Newcastle United fans, all Newcastle United members, know all too well that demand massively outstrips supply, when it comes to tickets. They know they are competing with so many other NUFC fans.

However, to then have their noses rubbed in it with stuff like this, the Newcastle United owners doing this, so many tickets going to people who aren’t NUFC fans.

Is this simply a money making exercise, instead of getting £60 or so from Newcastle fans, are the club selling these packages to groups of non-Newcastle fans for £150 a ticket, £200 a ticket?

Or is it simply because one of the Newcastle United directors or senior staff has some attachment to this £20k a year school in Dundee, maybe they are an ex-pupil or mates with the headteacher? That of course doesn’t explain why so many other large groups of neutrals get so many tickets match after match.

The transparency from the club is non-existent.

They won’t even say how many Newcastle United members there are, how many apply in ballots for a match, how many tickets are made available to NUFC members for each of the matches.

Other clubs such as Arsenal and others do this, why not Newcastle United?