Pro League and itsme® team up to ensure secure, customer-friendly football

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.

Digital verification compulsory for ticket sales

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.”

User-friendly and easy to access

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.

Reactions from the partners

“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.”

Share

Latest News

Website preview
itsme® doubles its growth rate and achieves record results in 2024
2024 was a record year for itsme® at all levels. The company not only succeeded in maintaining growth working with its original partners, but it also successfully tapped into new market segments and invested in the development of new applications. This resulted in some outstanding figures: the total number of itsme® actions rose to 475 million, and the company also recorded a profit of 5.4 million EUR.
press.itsme-id.com
Website preview
In addition to an easy login, the Flemish government and itsme® now bring digital signatures to every household in Flanders
The Flemish government signed a framework agreement with digital identity provider itsme that enables its citizens to make unlimited use of itsme’s easy login and secure digital signatures in for all official interactions and documents.
press.itsme-id.com
Port of Limburg among the most secure inland ports in the Benelux, thanks to a unique collaboration with SCR and itsme®
[Genk, November 26, 2024] – The Port of Limburg, a new container terminal in Genk, aims to become the safest inland port in the Benelux. To achieve this goal, various initiatives have been launched, and the terminal will now collaborate with T-Mining’s Secure Container Release (SCR) and itsme® to improve the security of container handling processes.
press.itsme-id.com

Get updates in your mailbox

By clicking "Subscribe" I confirm I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy.

About itsme

About itsme®

Since 2017, the itsme® app has been the simple and secure reference for mobile identification and privacy protection in the digital world. Today, itsme® has more than 7 million users and is adopted across more than 20 different sectors. With itsme®, users can: identification (create a new online account and share identity details), authentication (secure and personal access to a website or application), approval of transactions (confirm a purchase or bank payment), electronically sign documents with legal validity (qualified electronic signature with the highest level of assurance), and, finally, share data from an authentic source with a third party (data sharing). These various functionalities account for an average of 35 million itsme® actions per month, or more than 1 million itsme® actions per day.

itsme® was recognized as a digital identity by the Belgian government in January 2018 and at the European level in December 2019 (LOA high eIDAS). The application is widely used in the financial sector as it complies with PSD2, FATF, and GDPR regulations and has obtained ISO27001 certification.

itsme® was developed by the Belgian Mobile ID consortium, which brings together seven leading players from the Belgian banking and telecommunications sectors: Belfius, BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC/CBC, and ING on one side, and Orange Belgium, Proximus, and Telenet on the other. In mid-2021, for the first time since the identity app’s launch, a government fund became a shareholder, acquiring a 20% stake: the Federal Participation and Investment Company (FPIM). Additionally, six other shareholders contributed extra capital, with the aim of taking further steps towards a European digital identity.

Today, the app is available in 16 European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Contact

itsme@talkie.be