Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SPANISH TOUTS FLOG £1 , 600 PREM TICKETS
Fans offered seats not yet on official sale
ONLINE touts are flogging Premier League tickets at highly inflated prices before they are even available to fans through official channels.
As the top flight football season starts, Spanish website Ticketbis – a sister firm of ticket resale giant Stubhub – is advertising for games up to nine months away.
For the Manchester United vs Liverpool match at Old Trafford on March 10, standard single tickets are available at prices of up to £1,608.81.
Seats are also being offered for all Liverpool and Everton home fixtures at hundreds of pounds a time – despite the clubs not yet opening ticket sales for the second half of the season.
It is not clear if sellers somehow got the tickets early or if they know they will be able to obtain them nearer the time.
Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Tom Watson said: “The actions of some secondary ticketing websites continues to be nothing short of scandalous.
“If some of the mark-ups weren’t obscene enough, it’s been taken to a whole new level where these websites can sell tickets for matches that haven’t even gone on sale.” Ticketbis was bought by Stubhub owner ebay in 2016 and is now described as “a Stubhub company”.
As both sites host sales between fans, rather than selling tickets directly, they insist they are doing nothing wrong.
Ticketbis said that as all prices are set by individual sellers, they can be both “above and below the original price”. But critics argue they provide an easy platform for organised ticket touts who are snapping up seats and selling them at sky-high prices on an industrial scale.
Mr Watson urged the football industry to follow some music venues in cancelling tickets they believe have been bought by greedy touts.
He added: “The Premier League and consumer authorities need to come down hard on firms like Stubhub and Ticketbis who are taking fans for a ride.”
Neither Stubhub nor the Premier League was available to comment.
Everton uses Stubhub as an “official partner”. In a statement last night the Merseyside club defended the deal, insisting the average sale price through the site “worked out around face value”.
The findings are part of the Mirror’s Out The Touts campaign, which calls for tougher laws to protect fans.