Premier League: Ticket touting a ‘significant and rising’ problem

Top Premier League clubs each have between 8,000 and 12,000 season tickets, memberships and hospitality tickets under the control of advertisers, a leading security expert claims.

Iridium Consultancy’s Reg Walker believes it is a “significant, growing” problem that requires “coherent, coordinated action” from the authorities.

A number of Premier League clubs have highlighted the problem, with Arsenal, Brighton and Leeds recently saying they are addressing it.

Walker told BBC Sport that the black market in Premier League ticket promotion is worth more than £50million a year, but the true scale of the problem is “grossly underestimated”.

“It’s definitely going to get worse season by season,” Walker said. “10 years ago a big football promoter might have had a few hundred club memberships.

“Now you see advertisers with sometimes over 1,000 memberships.”

Fan ‘memberships’ allow people to register their details with the club – often for a small annual fee – and receive certain ticketing benefits in front of the general public.

The Seagulls discovered advertisers had set up multiple fake accounts to buy tickets from the club before reselling them for up to £250. The club blocked the tickets, calling it an “absolutely shameless exploitation of football fans”.

As recently as Tuesday, Arsenal said they had recently blocked “100,000 suspicious bots” from their ticketing site.

In a statement, they added: “A significant number of season ticket and member accounts have also been suspended for suspicious promotional activity.”

“Certainly more could be done and certainly it needs to be coordinated by the Football Association and the Premier League,” said Walker, adding that there had been a “small number of cases” of ticket corruption within clubs.

“There needs to be coherent, coordinated action across the UK rather than just leaving it to each individual club.

“It’s not a club problem, it’s a football problem and it takes the FA and the Premier League to take the lead.”

The current law is “absolutely inadequate,” says Walker. Under Section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, it is a criminal offense for an unauthorized person to sell a ticket to a specific football match.

However, the offense is only summary, which means that the offenders can only be fined.

According to Home Office figures on football-related crimes, only 13 arrests were made for ticket advertising offenses in the 2021/22 season.

That number has largely declined season-over-season as there were 104 arrests in 2013-14.

In 2018, according to Walker, a top club canceled nearly 8,000 memberships that had been purchased by recruiters.

He added that it’s not uncommon for around 200 fans per game to be turned away at ticket turnstiles with invalid tickets – a number that “only scratches the surface”.

Walker – who is working with the government on the matter and was involved in anti-ticket advertising at the 2012 Olympics – believes further action is needed to protect fan safety, as many touted tickets often lack seating for fans in areas reserved for rival fans.

“I think in the current climate safety is the biggest factor,” he said.

“Football is emotional. It’s very tribal so if you’re, say, the only Everton fan at the Liverpool end and your team scores and you cheer, it’s not going to end well.

“There is a major public safety issue, including with the unfortunate increase in violence at football matches, so it’s really important that fans are protected.

“The law was enacted because organized gangs of football hooligans got tickets on the opposing team’s fansite and carried out absolute carnage.

“We don’t want to go back to that situation, so it’s important that we act against courtship at football matches to prevent public order situations and keep people safe.”

Many Premier League clubs have switched to digital tickets to eradicate ticketing – as well as for environmental reasons – although some still rely on paper tickets.

It is understood that Leeds United have seen a significant improvement in reducing the number of people with invalid tickets gaining access to Elland Road since going digital earlier in the season.

The club has deployed additional stewards and customer service agents at the gates to help supporters who don’t have access to smartphones but still use paper tickets.

However, from Sunday, when Leeds host Manchester United at Elland Road, the club will remove the option for fans to print their tickets at home – and no one will be able to enter the stadium without a digital ticket.

“Mobile ticketing gives clubs incredible tools to track the lifespan of a ticket,” said Walker.

“You can track from the sale to the person who shows it at the gate. You can track how many tickets an account transfers each year.

“It gives you an incredible ability to detect promotional activity, detect unauthorized resale of tickets and stop about 90% of ticket bleeding on the black market.”

The FA urges fans to “buy tickets only through official sources” and tells BBC Sport there are “strong and strict procedures” in place to prevent tickets being touted at Wembley Stadium.

The Premier League has compiled a list of unauthorized ticketing websites known to have sold trumped up tickets and urges fans to exercise caution when using such websites.

Signs that a ticket may be invalid include grossly inflated ticket prices, tickets sold many months in advance of a scheduled game, no confirmation of seat numbers, and a large number of tickets sold for a high profile game.

Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council for football policing, said: “Ticket promotion is a criminal offense and those caught exploiting genuine fans in this way must face action.

“We support all proposals to prevent ticket sales and will continue to work with clubs and leagues to tackle these crimes.”