Visa under fire as touts get rich from World Cup
OFFICIAL World Cup partner Visa has been condemned for allowing touts to use its payment service to sell England tickets at more than ten times their face value.
FIFA has vowed to clamp down on World Cup touts – already illegal in the UK – yet Visa, one of only six ‘global partner’ firms for the 2014 tournament in Brazil, rakes in fees every time such a ticket is bought using one of its cards from shady websites.
We found one ticket with a face value of £47 for England’s match with Uruguay being offered for £676. Thousands of fans risk being turned away from matches if they buy tickets through unofficial vendors, but The Mail on Sunday found firms on the internet offering illicitly obtained tickets at up to 14 times the face value.
Many of the tickets are believed to have originally been allocated to sponsors, partners and officials but resold for a profit in strict breach of FIFA’s rules – and Brazilian law.
Viagogo is offering tickets with a face value of £91 for England’s match with Costa Rica on June 24 in Belo Horizonte for as much as £974 – a mark-up of more than 1,000 per cent.
For England’s opening game against Italy in Manaus next Saturday, £91 tickets are on offer at £884 on website Ticketbis.
Live Football Tickets and 1st 4 Football Tickets are selling the same tickets for £501. One site boasts it ‘proudly accepts’ Visa.
Last night, Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ticket Abuse, said: ‘Visa, as one of the main sponsors of the World Cup, should not be facilitating and profiting from the dubious sale of these tickets. Are they going to refund fans who have bought tickets using their Visa card and are left disappointed when they can’t get in the stadium? I think they should.
‘It’s great The Mail on Sunday is highlighting this.’ Asked by a reporter if the sales broke FIFA rules, a Ticketnetwork worker said: ‘ To my knowledge, it does not.’
Kevin Miles of the Football Supporters Federation said: ‘We have hundreds of heartbroken fans who have been ripped off by genuine attempts to buy tickets through less than genuine websites. A health warning should be placed against any site offering tickets outside official channels.’
FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil said fans ‘paying a fortune’ for tickets through Viagogo ‘will be disappointed’ when their tickets are rejected at stadiums.
Viagogo admitted the company openly flouts FIFA rules. Visa said: ‘The issue of ticket reselling is the responsibility of FIFA. Cardholders who transacted with unofficial sellers and didn’t receive promised goods should contact their bank to report their non-receipt and determine steps for remedy.’