Carabao Cup final tickets in the Newcastle United end have appeared on resale sites for “disgusting” prices of up to £2,000 – a mark up of more than 200 per cent as touts prey on unprecedented Wembley demand.
Newcastle have an allocation of 31,939 tickets for next month’s final against Liverpool and the first official tickets went on sale to eligible fans at Wednesday lunchtime.
Further batches of tickets will be released on Thursday and Friday to supporters who are part of the club’s Cup ticket scheme and have attended enough games in the run to the final but a meticulously put together process has not prevented resale sites from listing scores of tickets in Newcastle sections for 10 times the price of the most expensive category one tickets.
Live Football Tickets, a site based in Madrid, is listing dozens of what it claims are tickets in the Newcastle end for £1,495 while Ticombo, which operates out of Germany, is offering pairs of tickets “seated together” at £1,700 each. A single VIP box ticket is being sold for an eye-watering £8,000.
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Read MoreThe club have condemned the flagrant attempts to cash in and warned any fans caught reselling that their tickets will be cancelled and they will be banned from attending future matches but this represents a depressing new front in Newcastle United’s ongoing battle with touts.
Indeed The i Paper understands that the club have a number of live investigations ongoing into fans – some in relation to Carabao Cup final tickets – and have banned 43 fans since the start of last season for reselling tickets.
It has become a big issue at St James’ Park, where regular sell-outs have left the club susceptible to the resale sites. While the practice of reselling tickets without club permission is illegal in the UK, industry experts have told The i Paper the current legislation is “weak” and only scratches the surface of the problem. The fear is that with demand for Wembley tickets far out-stripping supply among Newcastle fans some may be tempted to take a chance on the resale tickets and risk being ripped off.
Industry experts think a combination of corporate tickets falling into the hands of professional touts, club membership schemes being manipulated and unscrupulous fans selling on their own tickets is how they eventually make it onto the resale market, where many are sold on to overseas supporters prepared to pay the big mark-ups.
They also warn that many of the tickets listed are speculative, with vague seat and block listings a telltale sign that the companies haven’t actually got the inventory they are advertising.
Ticket resales has become a big issue at St James’ Park (Photo: Getty)Indeed The i Paper understands that as part of their research into the problem Newcastle United officials have, on numerous occasion, tried to buy tickets advertised on the sites but that they haven’t actually been available.
Newcastle have been given the West End of Wembley but there was dismay among some supporters that their allocation was actually down on the 2003 final. The club have responded by reducing the number of tickets allocated to staff and sponsors to ensure a greater percentage get into the hands of genuine fans who qualify. But they are also monitoring the resale market.
Reg Walker, a ticketing expert and security consultant at the Iridium Consultancy, says touts are “incredibly savvy and well-organised” and tighter laws are needed to crack down on the issue.
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Read More“Enforcement on football tickets has been woefully inadequate,” Walker said.
“The problem is you are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds worth of football tickets, memberships and hospitality that are harvested by touts that are resold at exorbitant prices.
“The mark-ups on these Carabao Cup tickets for Newcastle fans is absolutely disgusting and it’s very, very damaging to football.”
Clubs are belatedly beginning to battle the issue with Liverpool recently cancelling 100,000 ticketing accounts that were either run by or under the control of touts. But the scale of the reselling operations is eye-watering, with Walker warning that only tightening up legislation will begin to combat it.
“The problem is the legislation is weak and we’ve been telling this Government and the last one it needs amended,” he said.
“At the moment the offence is a summary one, not an indictable one, so you get summoned to court and get a slap on the wrist. There’s a simple solution: make the offence indictable and then you need [to] make the legislation supranational so it’s an offence anywhere in the world and you prevent a situation where a website can be set up in Spain and tickets are bounced there, circumnavigating the existing laws.”
Ticombo and Live Football Tickets were contacted for comment.
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