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Prices in the thousands of euros (dollars) have been demanded on secondary ticketing websites and UEFA said buyers could be refused entry Wednesday at Athletic Bilbao鈥檚 stadium.

鈥淪uch tickets may be canceled by UEFA at any time and fans are likely to be refused entry or be ejected from the stadium,鈥� the European soccer body said in a statement.

鈥淚n addition, fans may not receive the tickets which they have purchased from these unauthorized third parties,鈥� UEFA said, specifying 鈥渨ebsites, agencies, touts鈥� as problematic sellers.

UEFA also sold about 11,000 tickets in a global sale through its website and nearly 9,000 were retained for sponsors, broadcasters, European soccer federations and guests.

All tickets were distributed digitally with security features in a UEFA ticketing app for cellphones designed to prevent the buyer transferring them.

鈥淥nly the phone used to download the mobile tickets will be able to access the stadium,鈥� UEFA warned. 鈥淪creenshots of mobile tickets are not valid tickets.鈥�

UEFA typically chooses venues for European club competition finals at least two years in advance, and has long faced criticism it regards as unrealistic for not switching stadiums to suit the two teams. Those teams advance through semifinals played just two or three weeks before the final.

Bilbao was allocated the Europa League final in July 2021 as part of a compensation package for the city being dropped by UEFA as a host for the men鈥檚 European Championship played that summer one year late because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2021, because the city could not give UEFA guarantees on how many spectators would be able to attend games due to public health rules during the pandemic.

Bilbao was picked as a Euro host in 2014 when the most senior Spanish official in soccer was Angel Maria Villar, then a FIFA and UEFA vice president and a native of the Basque city.

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