£54k a ticket
That’s what touts want for final briefs – 180 times £295 face value
TICKETS for England’s Euros final were being sold by touts for an astonishing £54,000 each yesterday.
Tickets on Uefa’s official website for the final of Euro 2020 at Wembley on Sunday night sold out last week and it is highly doubtful any more will appear.
But thousands of seats have been listed on high-profile ticket resale websites, social media pages and eBay.
Yesterday the Mail found a pair of tickets for sale on website Ticombo for £54,000 each – more than 180 times their original face value of £295.
Each ticket was being offered for £43,000, and each came with a booking fee of £11,000.
Hospitality tickets were being sold on a website called Live Football Tickets for £40,000 apiece.
Thousands of others are being offered at prices ranging from £5,000 to £30,000. But it is hard to establish whether all are genuine.
Uefa has warned that fans who used these websites to buy seats could be refused entry into the ground, while consumer watchdogs said that many being sold this way are fakes.
But judging by the high level of requests for tickets on social media sites and other internet bulletin boards, many appear willing to take that risk.
A Twitter account called Wembley Scam Tickets, which highlights fraudulent sellers, said it had received messages from fans who had paid £32,000 for fake seats. Some supporters have written scathing online reviews about tout websites, saying tickets they bought didn’t arrive and phone calls were ignored.
Adam French, a consumer rights expert at Which?, said: ‘We’re seeing tickets for sale on websites or via secondary sellers for thousands of pounds. Even though some of these websites claim to offer tickets from 100 per cent trusted sellers, this is often not the case.’
Adam Webb, from campaign group FanFair Alliance, said: ‘Rogue ticket tout websites continue to buy their way to the top of internet search results, misleading buyers, and give highly controversial businesses an undeserving cloak of legitimacy.’
Mr Webb said most websites are registered outside the UK, making it difficult to get refunds.
While the fevered anticipation of fans has seen ticket prices soar, politicians in Scotland have offered a mixed reaction to England reaching the final.
Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine yesterday wholeheartedly backed the England team. The MP for Edinburgh West said: ‘This proud Scot will be cheering loudly for England on Sunday.’
But prior to the semi-final, Nationalist Pete Wishart expressed his support for Denmark.