The Pro League and itsme team up

The Pro League and itsme have teamed up for the next three years to ensure that buying tickets to top football matches is secure and customer-friendly for everyone. This partnership between Belgian professional football and itsme will provide enhanced security for ticket sales to matches in Belgium’s highest football divisions, without compromising on efficiency and customer-friendliness.  

Starting this spring, the itsme app will gradually be incorporated into the Roboticket ticketing platform of the Pro League clubs. Building on the successful completion of pilot projects last season at Sporting Charleroi and OHL, the Pro League has decided to embark on a joint partnership with itsme for the next three years.  

Using itsme’s familiar identity verification technology, both season ticket holders and buyers of individual match tickets will be required to verify their identity at the time of purchase (the former group will verify only once per season). Integrating itsme in this way will contribute to more secure stadium visits, as well as help clubs meet legal requirements, because each ticket will need to be assigned to a named individual. As part of this new partnership, new thresholds will be set to tackle fraud, illegal reselling and identity misuse.  

Olivier Simons, COO at Sporting Charleroi, was won over after the successful pilot programme at the club: “At Sporting Charleroi, we are always happy to play our part in initiatives that improve the overall football experience for fans. The collaboration between our club and itsme went seamlessly and we received extremely positive feedback from supporters. It’s great to see this rollout now extending to all clubs, and we should be proud of this Belgian partnership, which is improving both security and the overall fan experience.” 

The itsme app is already firmly established in the daily lives of many Belgians and is used for a whole range of operations, such as online banking and logging into or signing government services. Partnering with a leading Belgian company that is already familiar to the wider public means that the Pro League is able to ensure that the identification process for ticket buyers can run smoothly, securely and in a way that is user-friendly. 

Itsme is available to users from the age of 16.  and younger children will be able to be registered via their parents’ ticket account. Itsme is also available in 16 different European countries, which means it can also be used as a method of identification for fans with other nationalities. For all other cases, the Pro League has an alternative and simple identity verification solution when fans are purchasing tickets for matches. 

“We have set ourselves three objectives through this partnership: to increase security in a way that is comfortable and convenient for our fans and to ensure that our clubs can easily comply with legal obligations regarding identification,” says Lorin Parys, CEO of the Pro League. “The third aim is to work with itsme on an innovation process to explore ways of improving physical access controls at stadiums in a customer-friendly way. So, working with itsme aligns perfectly with our plan to improve safety and security for everyone – a responsibility we uphold every day.” 

Stephanie De Bruyne, CEO of itsme, adds: “We are excited to be using our expertise in digital identification to make the football experience safer, more secure and easier for all fans. After completing a number of successful pilot projects, this new partnership now allows us to offer the same experience to other supporters as well.”