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          Disgruntled fans label Rugby World Cup 2027 ticketing 'worst ever'

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          • ESPN
          Feb 17, 2026, 09:29 PM ET

          Disgruntled rugby fans have taken to social media within an hour of Rugby World Cup 2027 tickets going on sale to share their fury over a system that had many questioning whether they were going to get through at all.

          The official World Cup presale opened at Midday, Wednesday [AEDT] to fans across the world with many joining the queue in the early hours of the morning in the hope of buying tickets to next year's global event. Instead, many have been left confused and frustrated by the technology.

          It has been described as "the worst ticketing system ever" while others have questioned why access for the queue is open for everyone when registering for presale was a requirement. Others have faced multiple tech issues that saw them booted from the site, after selecting tickets and attempting to pay or simply haven't been able to access the queue at all.

          Questions have also been made of the graphic design of the site with some a yellow progress bar, in terms of whether people we're progress in the queue, was actually that, while the lack of a queue number also left many fans frustrated.

          It comes four years after World Rugby faced similar issues during ticketing for Rugby World Cup 2023 in France. Thirty minutes after tickets became available the official Rugby World Cup X account posted the ticketing page was seeing "extremely high demand for tickets" and to remain patient through the queue system, but the post has simply become a place for fans to air their grievances with the site.

          Fans have likened the ticketing experience with their attempts to buy tickets for major music acts including Taylor Swift, Adele and, most recently, K-Pop group BTS, all of which saw spectacularly high demand and were subject to high amounts of bots and scalpers.

          After more than two hours of waiting, fans began to report their ticketing success, while others continued to wait in frustration. Meanwhile, the huge Pool A clash between hosts Australia and local rivals New Zealand had only category A tickets remaining for the princely sum of $635, three hours after the presale opened.