Football’s ticket black market – are fans being ripped off?

How simple it is to purchase Premier League tickets on the black market has been the subject of a BBC investigation.

Last weekend, we purchased tickets from four websites that the Premier League had labeled “unauthorised” and used to watch four games.

The platforms claim to have tens of thousands of tickets available, although experts told us the numbers are likely inflated.

Beyond the purview of UK law, these businesses have locations abroad in Spain, Dubai, Germany, and Estonia.

Sales are only permitted by the Premier League and affiliated clubs through their own platforms and official partners.

For example, several clubs have a relationship with Ticketmaster.

A supporter’s ticket must be sold or transferred on the official club exchange if they are unable to play.

The Premier League publishes a list of websites that they deem to be “unauthorized.”

We chose four sites from that list that appeared to have the most listings and were accessible to customers in the UK.

Rarely were the seat numbers displayed. Instead of being shown, “longside lower tier” and “shortside upper tier” were used.

But almost every type of ticket was on there, including hospitality. Prices ranged from £55 to £14, 962 and were displayed in pounds. A service fee of about 25% was always included with the price we paid.

After completing our purchases the sellers were quick to get in touch. Just after paying, a Seatsnet representative called us.

In the upcoming days, they advised us to expect a barcoded ticket via email or WhatsApp.

You might be reading this and wondering what the problem is with a secondary ticket site, particularly if, in the case of the Manchester derby, it allowed you access to a sold-out game days before the match.

According to our investigations, supporters were able to pay far more for tickets than they actually did when they were actually sold.

The businesses claim to have thousands of tickets at hand. That means they have been taken out of general circulation so fans will find it harder to purchase tickets at normal values from the club.

Thirdly, safety and segregation are in the minds of some.

No details about our supporters’ support were checked. For the Manchester derby, for example, we could have been Manchester United fans in the City end.

Football clubs are responsible for developing their own strategies to stop ticket sales to unauthorised resellers, according to a statement from the UK government.

We used these four internationally recognized websites:

And it appears reselling Premier League tickets is big business for them.

In their most recent public accounts, Livetix Group, the company behind Live Football Tickets, reported revenue of 19 million euros.

All of these websites advertise themselves as “ticket marketplaces,” making a buck from sellers.

Only Ticombo, regularly displays who those sellers are.

Additionally, NGO Events, a seller, has more than 14, 000 listings on the website.

NGO Events, however, is not a trading company, according to company records. It is run by Thomas Senge, the managing director of Ticombo Switzerland.

Atle Barlaup, Senge’s chief executive, and Ticombo’s other top-selling CEO, both previously served on the boards of WorldTix, another significant Ticombo stock.

The three businesses all appear to be connected and have identical registered addresses in Engelberg, a small Swiss city.

Ticombo told us NGO Events and WorldTix are “partners of Ticombo” but adhere to “the same obligations” as other traders.

In the world of touting, Barlaup is a well-known name.

He admitted to paying cash for 820 World Cup tickets to Fifa vice-president Jack Warner in 2011 and admitted to doing so on BBC Panorama.

Ticombo said Barlaup spoke to BBC Panorama to “highlight corruption within Fifa”.

Football Ticket Net‘s history is also rife.

Although their shareholders are Israeli, they are currently based in Estonia.

Under a previous parent company – owned by one of the current shareholders – they were fined 600, 000 euros by a French court for infringing Uefa’s trademarks and selling tickets for European finals.

Despite our four successes, getting through the turnstiles is not always straightforward with resold tickets.

Numerous reports of supporters being denied entry were heard.

Crystal Palace aficionado Matt called it “wild west stuff.”

He paid £400 on a separate site – Fanpass – so his 79-year-old uncle could attend May’s FA Cup final, only for him to be turned away at the gate.

Twenty minutes prior, Wembley confirmed that a duplicate ticket had been scanned.

The seller boasted about bringing 200 additional people to the game in messages that the BBC saw.

Fanpass told us: “Our priority is to ensure that every customer is able to attend the event for which they have purchased tickets. Extremely uncommon are the instances where a customer is denied entry.

Alister, a Ticombo buyer, had a similar troubling experience.

When his ticket failed, a tout met him outside the Emirates to personally scan him in with a replacement.

Supporter of Nottingham Forest Alister had intended to play in the opposite end. He became aware that he had become one of the home fans because of his new ticket.

“The Arsenal fans didn’t want us there”, he said. It was “uncomfortable, inappropriate, and completely unacceptable.”

Using fake identities and bots, many ticket sellers purchase them. We’re not sure if any of the businesses we’ve mentioned use this method.

Some tickets carry the name of the original holder, offering clues about their origin.

Five tickets, which were purchased from “unauthorised” websites and fans shared, bear names that aren’t listed on the UK electoral open register, birth certificates from England and Wales, or social media:

According to Reg Walker, a renowned expert in ticket security, “at least a few of them seem completely synthetic.”

So-called ticket bots are another issue, even though they are against the law.

These computer programs make the official ticket purchasing procedure simpler, allowing touts to purchase multiple tickets at once.

Posing as a potential customer, we spoke to one company selling such technology.

They provided us with software specifically tailored to Tottenham’s, Chelsea, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Chelsea’s ticket distribution platforms.

The bots cost $ 2,500 per club, or $ 9,900 for a package deal.

We were told we would need valid club memberships, but the software would let us join an online ticket queue up to 25 times simultaneously with a “basic licence”.

The Premier League is already introducing new rules for digital ticketing which include the introduction of “encrypted barcodes”.

They claim that this will make it more challenging to advertise.

Two additional options Manal Smith, the former head of ticketing at Arsenal, suggested are ID verification similar to that of a bank app and a cap on how many tickets can be transferred.

The government has announced plans to cap the price of resale tickets across sectors.

However, the Football Supporters’ Association argued that lawmakers should proceed even further.

Former Labour MP Tom Greatrex, the head of the FSA, says, “There seems to be a loophole where agencies are based abroad that needs to be looked into in terms of legislation.”

Walker also believes legislation targeted at the foreign companies is the answer.

The legislation does not violate international law. A simple amendment would help to make sure that if you’re outside the UK, you don’t commit an offence.

Walker called the battle between football’s biggest clubs and ticket resellers an “arms race”.