Southampton apology after ticketing chaos at St Mary's
The club is offering ticket refunds
Southampton have offered to refund general admission tickets after chaos before their Premier League clash with Manchester United.
Many fans were still queueing outside St Mary's when Saints kicked off their Sunday afternoon clash, with problems caused by ticketing technology at the turnstiles.
A Saints statement read: "The club would like to apologise for the frustration caused by issues regarding match tickets and entry to the stadium today and is already working on a full investigation into these issues.
"We will be issuing a full refund for this game to every general admission ticket holder. Details of this process will be shared early next week.
"Once again the club is extremely sorry for any inconvenience caused.
"The club has already started a full investigation into today’s turnstile entry issue, where our initial assessment is that the scanning of tickets took significantly longer per person than we experienced in our recent pre-season matches and our own behind-closed-doors testing.
"We will start work immediately with our access partner to fully understand the reasons for this delayed entry and the solutions to avoid a repetition.
Today’s ticketing and entry issues were not the start we wanted to the 2021/22 season from a fan experience point of view.
"We know you have waited 16 months to be at a full stadium of Saints fans getting behind the team and today’s issues will have tainted that experience for a large number of you."