How to win football tickets

Do you love football? And if you’re not a fan yourself, maybe you have a family member who does?

In the UK there are always lots of prize promotions to win Premier League tickets and EFL (English Football League) tickets – plus opportunities for children to be mascots at Cup Finals, Playoff Finals and Champions League games. Every four years there’s also chances to win tickets and holidays to the UEFA European Championship and the World Cup!

Tickets to footy matches are super expensive, but my son and I regularly go and see our local team Brighton & Hove Albion for free, thanks to competition wins. Ryland has been a mascot for Arsenal at the FA Cup Final and also for Barcelona in the Champions League. I’ve presented a Man of the Match Award at Nottingham Forest – and also presented one to Kyle Walker at the England v Wales match at Euro 2016. One of my favourite footy prizes was seeing my beloved Birmingham City beat Arsenal in the League Cup Final – although unsurprisingly, my Gooner husband Rob still doesn’t like to talk about that day…

I love football, and I’m always looking out for chances to win – so I’ll be regularly updating this blog post with tips and details of the latest UK competitions to win match tickets!

First of all though, here’s my tips on how to find those ticket competitions. Your best bet is to find and follow all the sponsors connected to the League, Club or Competition you’d like to win tickets for. You’ll have the best chance of winning in the effort-based competitions (for example upload a photo, or where you need to buy a product), or last-minute comps for tickets where you’re not given much time to enter! 

Follow sponsors on social media

Club sponsors

If your preferred football club has sponsors, find and follow them on all their social media channels. Of course there’s the shirt sponsor and the stadium sponsor, but also check in the programmes for the matchball sponsor – and when you’re at a match, check the hoardings around the stadium for business names. These local sponsors may be giving away tickets during the season! American Express are sponsors of Brighton, and I won hospitality tickets to see Brighton Ladies via @AMEXUK on Twitter. I’ve won tickets to the 2022 EFL Cup Final with Carabao, the FA Cup Final thanks to Emirates and the 2020 EFL Trophy Final thanks to Leasing.com (unfortunately that one was during the pandemic with no fans so we missed out!)

• Find a list of current Premier League shirt sponsors on Wikipedia

National team sponsors

Brand partners linked to the ENGLAND national team are: Barclays, Boots, Bud Light, Deliveroo, Dettol, Disney, Google Cloud, LG, Lucozade, McDonalds, Nationwide, Panini, PayPal, Pokémon, Snickers and Weetabix – look out for ticket competitions from all these brands!

Cup sponsors

• FA Cup sponsor is Emirates (follow the Emirates FA Cup Facebook page for giveaways)
• Women’s FA Cup sponsor is Vitality (follow them on Facebook at Vitality UK & @VitalityUK on Twitter)
• EFL Cup sponsor is Carabao (follow them on Facebook at Carabao Cup & @CarabaoUK on Twitter)
• EFL Trophy is sponsored by Papa Johns (follow them on Facebook at Papa John’s & @PapaJohnsUK on Twitter)
• FA Trophy & FA Vase are sponsored by Buildbase (@BuildbaseUK & Buildbase Facebook page)

Premier League sponsors

• Budweiser – Bud frequently run on-pack promotions to win tickets, although the 2021 WinWithBud promotion has prizes of TVs rather than tickets!
• Barclays – Barclays do regular giveaways for tickets to Premier League and also Women’s Super League matches on the Barclays Football Facebook page – and in previous seasons, Barclays customers can enter weekly ticket prize draws on their mobile app
• EA Sports – EA have previously given away PL season tickets in prize draws if you purchase their FIFA games, and also do ticket giveaways on their @ElectronicArts Twitter account
• Coca-Cola – look out for on-pack promotions to win tickets with Coke.

Other PL sponsors are Nike, Hublot, Avery Dennison and Panini  

Football League sponsors

• Sky Bet sponsor the Football League (Championship, League 1 & 2) – follow @skybeteflreward on Twitter for giveaways, and download the SkyBet EFL Rewards app (Apple or Android) for chances to win.
• Vanarama sponsor the National League – follow them on Facebook and Twitter for comps

Champions League sponsors & partners

• Expedia Group (Expedia & Hotels.com)
• Nissan
• PepsiCo (Walkers, Doritos & Pepsi) – every year there’s an instant win promotions on Pepsi, Walkers and Doritos with prizes of tickets and merchandise (although for 2021 it’s just cash prizes – see my post about Instant Cash Wins!)
• Santander – keep an eye on their Facebook page for ticket comps!
• Sony PlayStation
• Heineken
• Gazprom – sign up on their website to be emailed details of their UCL Ticketmania giveaways
• Mastercard – check the Priceless Mascot competition page regularly

Europa League sponsors & partners

• FedEx – follow on Twitter
• Heineken 0.0
• Kia Motors – check for comps on their website and Facebook page
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• Hankook Tire – check their competitions page to win TVs and matchballs (ends 1 June 2021).

FA Women’s Super League sponsors

• Barclays – follow the WSL Facebook page
• Continental (also sponsor of The FA Continental Tyres Women’s League Cup)
• Mitre – follow on Facebook for occasional comps

Euro 2020 sponsors

The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship has lots of sponsors and partners across Europe, but the ones most likely to be running prize promotions open to UK residents are below. Also see my post Competitions to win Euro 2020 tickets and prizes.

• Coca-Cola – their current promotion starting on 24 May has prizes of Hisense TVs and Euro2020 merch.
• FedEx
• Heineken – check in using the Matchpint app between 22 May and 11 July 2021 for a chance to win Euro2020 tickets – read more
• Hisense – buy a Hisense product before 29 June 2021 and enter to win Euro2020 tickets – find out more here
• Volkswagen
• Vivo
• Just Eat
• Costa Coffee

World Cup 2022 sponsors

The next FIFA World Cup will be held in Qatar, in November/December 2022. Partners include Adidas, Hyundai-Kia, Qatar Airways, Coca-Cola and VISA but more will be announced nearer the time.

Join a supporters club

Enrolling your child into your club’s junior supporters membership scheme is a good idea – my son is a member of both the Junior Gunners (Arsenal) and the Young Seagulls (Brighton) and they run lots of exclusive promotions online, in the programmes and in the club magazine. Some clubs are free to join too.

Register for the new www.englandfootball.com website for the chance to win exclusive England prizes.

More places to find ticket giveaways

• Cadbury are no longer a Premier League sponsor, but are linked with many PL and EFL clubs. Look out for Match and Win, Cadbury Legends and on-pack instant win ‘golden ticket’ promotions for the chance to win tickets and VIP matchday experiences – the current promotion to win virtual and real player meet and greets is Win the Captain. You can also sign up as a supporter at Cadbury FC Fan Club, where you’re automatically entered into prize draws to win tickets to your two favourite PL or EFL clubs (you can’t choose two rival clubs!).
• Local newspapers give away tickets regularly
• Match programmes and club websites often have competitions – check in the kids section!
• The TalkSport website has a competitions page – and listen in for text comps
• VBET_UK , @SportPesa_UK, BetFast and other betting websites run occasional Twitter comps for tickets
• Matchpint gives you the chance to win Premier League tickets if you can predict scores successfully and top the League table – download the free app to play!
• The Pitchero app and website for grassroots clubs sometimes runs competitions
• Match of the Day magazine and website has footy prizes, including tickets!
• Screwfix run a Ticket Tuesday promotion (currently paused due to Covid) to win EFL tickets
• There are regularly comps for people in the building, plumbing or electrical trades to win tickets – check your local stockists for any in store marketing!
• Gillette used to be a Champions League sponsor, and still do football related giveaways – at the moment you can train with Raheem Sterling.

If you have a specific team or competition in mind, then create a Google search – for example ”Win Europa League match tickets” – and filter it to only show results from the last week. Then check it every week for new comps! Find tips on doing this in my blog post How to search Google for competitions.

Hopefully this post has given you lots of ideas on how to win yourself some match tickets! Let me know in the comments how you get on.