Key questions answered about football’s black market for tickets

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.

We used these four internationally recognized websites:

And it seems like they are big fans of reselling Premier League tickets.

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

All these websites describe themselves as “ticket marketplaces”, supposedly connecting buyers with sellers.

Only Ticombo frequently details who those sellers are.

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

But company records show NGO Events is not an independent trader. Thomas Senge, the managing director of Ticombo Switzerland, oversees it.

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.

All three companies appear to be linked and are registered in the same small Swiss town of Engelberg.

NGO Events and WorldTix, according to Ticombo, are “partners of Ticombo” but “accomplish the same obligations” as other traders.

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

In 2011, he admitted to BBC Panorama that he had paid Fifa vice-president Jack Warner 242, 000 euros in cash for 820 World Cup tickets.

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

Football Ticket Net‘s history is also rife.

They are currently registered in Estonia but their shareholders are from Israel.

A French court fined them 600,000 euros in exchange for selling tickets for European finals and infringing on the trademarks of a previous parent company owned by one of the current shareholders.

Despite our four successes, resold tickets are not always simple to use when entering the turnstiles.

Numerous reports of supporters being denied entry were heard.

“It’s Wild West stuff”, said Crystal Palace fan Matt.

His 79-year-old uncle could attend May’s FA Cup final on a separate website called Fanpass, but he was turned down at the gate and later paid £400.

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

In messages seen by the BBC, the seller bragged about sneaking 200 other people into the match.

Every customer is taken care of by Fanpass, according to Fanpass, and we want to make sure they can attend the event to which they have purchased tickets. Extremely uncommon are the instances where a customer is denied entry.

A Ticombo buyer, Alister had a similarly troubling experience.

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

Supporter of Nottingham Forest Alister had intended to play in the opposite end. Once inside, he realised his new ticket had placed him among the home fans.

He claimed that “the Arsenal fans didn’t want us there.” It was “uncomfortable, inappropriate, and completely unacceptable.”

Using fake identities and bots, many ticket sellers purchase them. We do not know if this is a method used by any of the companies we have mentioned.

Some tickets have the original holder’s name on them, providing hints as to where they came from.

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 programmes automate the official ticket buying process and allow touts to buy multiple tickets simultaneously.

We spoke with a company that sells such technology when I posed as a potential customer.

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

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

We were informed that we would need a “basic licence,” but the software allowed us to use the club’s website to access a queue up to 25 times at once.

The Premier League is already implementing new “encrypted barcodes” in new regulations for digital ticketing.

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

Banking app-style ID verification and a limit on the number of times a ticket can be transferred are two other solutions suggested by Manal Smith – former head of ticketing at Arsenal.

The government has proposed a cap on the sale price of tickets across sectors.

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

“There seems to be a loophole where agencies are based abroad that needs to be looked at in terms of legislation”, says FSA chair Tom Greatrex, who is a former Labour MP.

Walker also thinks that foreign company-targeted legislation is the solution.

The legislation does not violate international law. If you’re outside the UK you don’t commit an offence – that’s something that a simple amendment would solve”.

The conflict between the biggest football clubs and ticket sellers was described as an “arms race.”