Some Copa America ticketholders paid thousands — but couldn’t even take their seats

Felipe Ledesma, 22, saved up thousands of dollars to see his home country of Colombia play in the Conmebol Copa America final in Miami on Sunday night, paying $2,500 for a coveted ticket to the championship game. He drove nearly four hours from Lakeland and arrived at Hard Rock Stadium hours in advance, only to find his seat occupied by someone else when he got to his row.

Ledesma is one of many fans who were unable to watch Argentina and Colombia face off using the tickets they paid handsomely for. Ahead of the game, thousands of fans, many of whom did not have tickets, stormed the security gates and found alternate ways to get into the venue. Fearing a dangerous crowd crush, officials opened the gates to a whirlwind of spectators, leading the stadium to surpass capacity. As a result, many fans with tickets were left waiting outside.

READ MORE: Want a ticket for Copa America final at Hard Rock Stadium? Be ready to pay $1,600 or more

Graham Everett, 48, and his two sons were three such fans. Everett had traveled with his sons and wife from London for an extended vacation in Florida, buying tickets for himself and his sons to attend the game back in April. After spending 90 minutes in traffic and nearly two hours standing outside the stadium on Sunday, the three were no closer to getting inside by almost 10 p.m.

Having been a Liverpool soccer fan for his whole life, Everett was familiar with the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, in which a crowd crush left 97 people dead in a stadium with a much smaller capacity. He deemed the safety of his 17- and 20-year-old sons his top priority, and the three sheltered behind a merchandise van outside the stadium while they waited for things to calm down. After the game finally started and 30 minutes of play had passed, Everett made the decision to leave and took his family back to the hotel to watch the second half of the game there.

“I was very excited to go and watch [Argetina’s Lionel] Messi, who’s one of the most famous footballers on the planet, before he retires, and I’m not going to get that opportunity to go,” he told the Miami Herald. “It’s not like anything we’ve ever done before, that I’ve ever done before. It’s a once in a lifetime experience to go to this game.”

Claire Everett, his wife, was watching the news at their hotel and seeing videos of the crowds on social media. She was sending her family live updates since they weren’t receiving much information from outside the stadium. On several occasions, her messages couldn’t go through because of spotty cell reception at the venue.

“It was scary at the hotel, me not knowing, and seeing everything on the TV,” she said. “It’s put such a damper on our holiday.”

Kyle Bonn, a senior reporter at the media outlet the Sporting News, said he was in the press area when his colleague messaged him about the southwest gate, where some of the crowds were gathering. He went downstairs to see what was going on and was able to capture the moment the doors opened and people started sprinting past security.

Although Bonn has seen his fair share of soccer games, he said he generally sees unticketed fans in the parking lots for tailgates or watch parties, not right outside the entrance gates trying to get in.

“I know that happens around these big events sometimes, I’ve covered it from afar, but I’ve never seen that in person where so many unticketed fans are right there by the stadium,” he said.

Bonn was checking the gates intermittently from the press level and said they appeared to stay closed for about an hour and a half after the initial stampeding.

Ledesma, the 22-year-old from Lakeland, said he was able to enter the stadium with his friend when gates initially opened at 5 p.m. Ledesma said on a few occasions, it looked to him like groups of four or five people were entering after just one person in the group had scanned their ticket.

Ledesma and his friend didn’t go to their seats immediately, deciding to explore the stadium and take in the scene. But when they did, they saw the seats had already been filled — and were faced with a packed stairwell of people cramming the aisles to see the field.

Ledesma said security wouldn’t remove the violators, so he and his friend had to watch the game on a jumbotron from behind a closed concessions stand, with no direct view of the field. Ledesma and his friend paid $2,500 and $1,900, respectively, for their tickets in the 300 level.

Ledesma said it wasn’t just the loss of his seat that ruined the game — he also felt unsafe by the situation of unticketed fans storming into the stadium, leaving him unsure of whether anyone had brought in contraband or dangerous items.

“It felt like a very risky, abrasive situation to me, and it was supposed to be a moment of celebrating, of enjoying the game, of watching two different countries, and it was just a bad experience,” he said.

Ledesma said he is hoping for a refund. The Herald did not receive a response from Conmebol or Hard Rock Stadium on whether that might happen for him or for other fans in a similar position.

However, in a statement early Monday, Hard Rock told fans: “We understand there are disappointed ticket holders who were not able to enter the stadium after the perimeter was closed, and we will work in partnership with CONMEBOL to address those individual concerns.”