Atletico Madrid has expanded its ticketing capabilities, with fans of the La Liga club now able to enter the Riyadh Air Metropolitano via mobile wallet.
The Spanish top-flight club recently updated its contactless ticketing system to allow fans to make it through the turnstiles by downloading tickets onto either iOS or Android mobile wallets.
Backed by NFC technology, this development has been supported by La Liga and its technological solutions provider Sportian. Mobile tickets are nothing new in modern football, with clubs seeking to make matchday attendance more seamless for spectators.
Mobile tickets have become almost the predominant mode of entering football stadiums for some time now. As a repercussion of the COVID-19 pandemic, football clubs across England began to introduce NFC technology to matchday tickets to avoid contact with stadium officials.
Whilst initially mobile tickets did cause some frustrations, particularly inclusion issues amongst older generations of football fans who may not have access to a mobile phone, it has since allowed clubs and fans to reduce waiting times to enter stadiums before kick-off.
Atletico became the first Spanish football club to fully integrate NFC technology for its ticketing system, which began during the Copa del Rey fixture against Getafe FC.
In April 2024, the club introduced digital membership cards for fans to be directly downloaded to their relevant mobile wallets and has since been “widely accepted by all fans”, according to Atletico.
The club now offers all forms of tickets and season tickets via NFC technology, including physical cards, digital season tickets with QR codes, PDF tickets, season ticket wallets and ticket wallets.
Fans will be able to use their mobile wallet tickets for their upcoming El Derbi Madrileño fixture against cross-city rivals Real Madrid this weekend (8 February).
