London Irish guilty of ticket-tout breach

London Irish have been found guilty of breaching ticket-touting rules during England’s biggest autumn series for four years, and another club have been accused of doing the same, following a Rugby Football Union “sting” operation.

Irish, who were relegated from the Premiership last season and who currently lead the Championship, fell foul of a crackdown on teams selling on tickets provided to them by the RFU. The Readingbased club sold two hospitality packages for England’s win against South Africa to someone posing as a buyer amid concerns the RFU’S rules were being breached.

London Irish were sanctioned with a cut to their allocation for next season, a decision upheld on appeal. The other unnamed club have been accused of selling some of their own allocation for the same fixture after a similar sting found their tickets in the possession of an unauthorised hospitality provider run by a renowned secondarymarket operator.

They are suspected of doing the same for England’s match against New Zealand today, the first meeting between the two countries at Twickenham since 2014.

The unauthorised selling on of England tickets is banned by the governing body, which warns it will deny entry to anyone found in possession of them.

An RFU spokesman said: “We are cracking down on the unofficial hospitality market, which takes revenue out of the game. Official RFU hospitality invests profits back into rugby. If we have clear evidence of ticket misuse, we will act.”

London Irish last night admitted “inadvertently” selling a pair of tickets in contravention of RFU regulations and their own policies.

They said they were “disappointed” with the ruling against them for something they said had been acknowledged as “a genuine administrative error”.