The cup match between Vinnytsia's Niva and Kyiv's Dynamo has not even started yet, but a full-blown scandal has already broken out around it. Tickets for the match, which is set to take place on Thursday, September 10, in the round of 16 of the Ukrainian Cup, disappeared from sale within minutes of the launch, only to reappear on the secondary market at prices tens of times higher than the official cost. Now, for entry to a stadium that holds just 1,350 spectators, scalpers are asking for anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 hryvnia — a sum that, according to fans, exceeds even the price of tickets to matches of Madrid's Real.

How the official sale went

The official ticket sale for the match began on September 3 at 16:00. According to reports, they could be purchased in only one way — at the café on Niva's training base: the club provided no option to place an order online. Payment was accepted in cash only, and the number of tickets was limited to the capacity of the NTU 'Niva' stadium — 1,350 seats. The official price of a single entry ticket was set by the club at 200 hryvnia.

Sold out in minutes — and on OLX for thousands

According to posts on social media, tickets almost immediately disappeared from sale, and the club confirmed this information, stating that all seats had been sold out. However, after a short while the tickets reappeared — this time on secondary market platforms, in particular on OLX. There, their price, of course, no longer matched the advertised 200 hryvnia: prices started from 1,000 hryvnia and went up to 10,000 hryvnia per ticket.

Fans' reaction and the comparison with Real Madrid

Fans reacted to such prices sharply negatively — both the scalpers themselves and the match organizers came under criticism. In particular, Temir Brii, dean of the history faculty at DonNU, who moved to Vinnytsia together with the university, commented on the situation as follows: 'As a long-time Dynamo fan, I started thinking about the possibility of visiting the stadium. But the match organizers, in collusion with the scalpers, quickly put an end to my thoughts: I am definitely not going to pay 2–10 thousand for a ticket. That's how we know how to throw people a football party in wartime conditions.' It is noted that the prices offered by scalpers exceed even the cost of tickets at the Santiago Bernabeu: for official Real Madrid matches in the 2026/27 season, the price starts from 75 euros, which is about 3,900 hryvnia.

Contradictory data

There is a notable inconsistency in the versions here. On the one hand, the club officially stated that all tickets at the price of 200 hryvnia had been sold out, and that the sale was conducted at only one point and only for cash. On the other hand, a large number of tickets are being offered on OLX for 1,000–10,000 hryvnia, which in fact refutes the claim of a complete absence of available seats at the official price and indicates that a significant portion of the print run went not to fans but to scalpers. Fans directly accuse the organizers of 'colluding with scalpers,' but the club itself has not publicly confirmed or denied the existence of a conspiracy — as of the time of publication, the only version confirmed by the club remains the fact of the tickets being sold out. The exact figures for how many tickets exactly went into resale are not disclosed anywhere.

Match context

As a reminder, Niva, which plays in the Second League, will host Kyiv's Dynamo on Thursday, September 10, in the round of 16 of the Ukrainian Cup; the match is scheduled to kick off at 15:30. Since the Vinnytsia club represents the lower league, it is, by regulation, the home team for this match. The Kyiv side, in turn, begin their defense of the cup trophy at exactly this stage of the tournament.