What should have been a day of excitement quickly descended into confusion and frustration as thousands of fans were left unable to purchase tickets for the highly anticipated AFC Asian Cup Qualifier between Bangladesh and Singapore.
Sales were scheduled to go live on Saturday evening via Tickify, the official ticketing platform. However, just as fans rushed online to secure their seats, the platform suffered a major crash — which both the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) and Tickify later attributed to a cyber attack.
Initially, the BFF had announced that tickets would be available from 12 PM. But in a last-minute change, the release time was pushed to 8 PM — further fuelling anticipation and causing fans to remain on high alert throughout the day.
When 8 PM finally arrived, the result was digital mayhem. Fans attempting to access the site were met with error messages, endless loading screens, or no access at all. Instead of securing tickets, many found themselves stuck in a virtual traffic jam.
Social media platforms quickly erupted with anger and disappointment. Frustrated supporters voiced their outrage after spending hours refreshing pages and waiting in vain.
In a late-night statement, the BFF confirmed the disruption and attributed it to a cyber attack.
“The Tickify website, designated for ticket sales for the Bangladesh vs Singapore match, has unfortunately been hit by a cyber attack,” the federation said.
“Tickify and the Bangladesh Football Federation sincerely apologise for the temporary inconvenience.”
Tickify followed with a more detailed update on Facebook, revealing that their servers were likely hit with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
“Initial investigations indicate our system may have been targeted by a DDoS attack, with an unexpected surge of over 150,000 extra requests in a short period,” the statement read.
“This abnormal spike in traffic significantly impacted our platform’s performance.”
The company assured users that their technical team was working “around the clock” and hoped to have the issue resolved within 24 hours.
“We take full responsibility and are implementing enhanced security and stability measures to prevent future disruptions,” Tickify added.
But for the thousands of fans who had cleared their schedules, skipped weekend plans, or spent the day glued to their devices, the damage had already been done. With no tickets and no updated timeline for sales, confusion and disappointment continue to grow — a sour prelude to one of Bangladesh’s most anticipated football fixtures in recent years.