Push for action as AFL ticket touts look to score

THE AFL has been urged to order its official ticket seller to stop allowing seats to be sold for hugely inflated prices on the secondary market as desperate fans are gouged for the footy finals.

Ticketmaster Resale last week advertised tickets to the first week of the finals for up to $700, cashing in on fans desperate to see Friday’s sold-out Richmond-Geelong clash at the MCG.

Dozens of fans buying finals tickets to matches in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide including the MCG blockbuster via secondary sites were turned away at the weekend despite paying over the odds.

But, despite other codes and concert promoters banning use of their tickets on resale sites, the AFL has so far refused to intervene on behalf of fans.

Cricket Australia has set a precedent, writing a clause into its Ticketmaster contract that tickets to key clashes such as the Ashes cannot be advertised on Ticketmaster Resale.

Promoter Michael Gudinski also cut a deal with Ticketmaster banning Ed Sheeran tickets on the Resale site ahead of his recordbreaking Australian tour next March.

Not a single ticket to any of the British crooner’s show are listed on Ticketmaster Resale despite about 850,000 being sold to 12 concerts nationwide including four at AFL-owned Etihad Stadium.

The AFL refused to comment on whether it would ask Ticketmaster to remove finals tickets from its Resale site.

It also refused to say whether the AFL earned any profit or a percentage of sales for tickets sold on Ticketmaster Resale.

Geelong fan Robert Draper bought two tickets worth $35 each to Friday’s MCG final for $290 on Ticketmaster Resale but when he arrived at the turnstiles with his dad their passes were rejected. Fellow Cats fans Suse McLean and Dave Beard suffered the same fate, travelling from Jan Juc to the MCG with tickets they paid $340 for on Viagogo to find someone had already entered with their barcodes.

“When we went to scan in a red cross came up and it said ‘ already in’ — we had been sold dodgy tickets that had been sold to other people as well,’’ Mr Beard said.

“I don’t want anyone to go through what we did.’’