Portsmouth, Blackburn, Bolton and Bradford all report same issue as global IT outage continues

The Fratton Park outfit issued a statement this morning confirming they were unable to sell tickets for forthcoming games or process membership applications because of the issue.

Hospitality packages for the Carabao Cup first-round game on Tuesday, August 13, went on sale on Thursday.

A statement from the club read: ‘Due to the global IT issues currently affecting Windows devices, Portsmouth Footbal Club are currently unable to sell or process tickets and memberships, either in person, over the phone or online.

‘Our ticketing provider have paused all ticketing sites, including Portsmouth FC's, so supporters will be held in a queue until services resume.

‘We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience during this time. We will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available.’

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Overnight, Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an issue with its services and apps, with the tech giant’s service health website warning of ‘service degradation’ that meant users may not be able to access many of the company’s most popular services, used by millions of business and people around the world.

Football League clubs including Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, Chesterfield, Huddersfield, Leyton Orient, Lincoln, Plymouth, Preston, Rotherham and Walsall have all reported issues. Meanwhile, Manchester United said they were postponing the release of tickets due to the outage and that the club’s website was down until the issue was resolved.

Sky Sports News was unable to broadcast live and was directing viewers to its app and its website.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike later said it was ‘actively working’ to fix a ‘defect’ in an update for Microsoft Windows users which sparked the outage, the company’s chief executive has said.

George Kurtz said Mac and Linux users were not impacted by the fault and it was ‘not a security incident or cyber attack’.