[lfc-news] Fury at£750 euro tickets - Echo

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Liverpool Echo, 13 May 2005
Fury at £750 euro tickets
By Tony Barrett

TICKETS for Liverpool's Champions League final clash with AC Milan are
changing hands for up to twenty times their face value.

Fans desperate for tickets are being quoted as much as £750 each - as
touts and ticketing agencies sidestep laws supposed to stop them from
cashing in on major sporting occasions.

Liverpool fans today joined forces with local politicians to call for an
inquiry into Uefa's ticketing policy, which has allowed tens of
thousands of tickets to fall into the hands of people who support
neither of the two teams in the final.

The root of the problem was the decision by Uefa to give 15,000 tickets
to members of the "Uefa family", with a further 15,000 being split
evenly between the Turkish open market and a ballot on Uefa's own website.

Liverpool and AC Milan have been given just 20,000 tickets each, despite
both having average attendances in excess of 40,000.

Upon receiving their allocation, Liverpool FC chiefs decided they could
only offer tickets to fans who have been to at least six European games
this season - meaning thousands of supporters will miss out.

Now, with the final in Istanbul less than a fortnight away, the scramble
for tickets has begun in earnest and the touts are cashing in.

The ECHO today checked out internet auction site ebay to see if tickets
were available there. We found scores of tickets - with a face value of
£36 and £64 - on sale for anything between £250 and £420 each.

In order to get round laws banning touting some vendors are offering the
tickets as part of a "package deal".

These offers include things like a blank CD plus two "free" Champions
League final tickets - giving the misleading impression a blank CD is on
sale for £560 and the "lucky" buyer will also receive a pair of cup
final tickets.

Richard Pedder, chairman of the official Liverpool Supporters Club, said
this problem was always going to rear its head as soon as both clubs
were given a ticket allocation that went nowhere near meeting the
demands of two such large fan bases.

He said: "If you look at the number of fans both Liverpool and AC Milan
have, then common sense would suggest they should have been given a
minimum of 30,000 tickets each.

"The fact that they weren't given anything like this just played into
the hands of touts, who can now demand pretty much what they like for
tickets.

"I can understand Uefa giving a certain amount of tickets to various
associations, just as the FA do for the FA Cup Final.

"But in this case, it looks like they've given far too many tickets to
people who've got nothing to do with the final and this is a major
problem that needs addressing."

Internet ticket agencies are also cashing in at the expense of genuine
fans - safe in the knowledge that any fines levied against them for
touting are likely only to scrape the surface of their profits.

Anyone found guilty of touting faces a fine of up to £5,000, meaning
Trading Standards bodies have to build up a whole batch of individual
charges against an agency falling foul of the law in order to make them
liable to receive a bigger fine.

A further trawl of the internet found a London ticket shop which is
selling tickets for £425, ticket-finders.com is offering them for
between £400 and £600 and t he most expensi ve, theonlineticketshop.com,
advertising guaranteed tickets in the Liverpool end for £725.

Riverside MP Louise Ellman said: "It seems very unfair that genuine fans
who have missed out on tickets are being forced into paying vastly
inflated sums simply to watch their team play.

"This is something that Uefa and the football authorities in general
need to look at and they should do so with utmost urgency."

Liverpool Wavertree MP Jane Kennedy agreed with her colleague, adding:
"It's a disgrace when genuine fans who go to game after game in the hope
of eventually making it to an occasion like this have to miss out.

"It's time Uefa sorted this out once and for all so that situations like
this can never arise again in the future."

A Uefa spokesman insisted the body was already aware of the problem of
tickets being sold at hugely inflated prices and had placed the matter
in the hands of its legal department.

"Our ticketing policies were established many months before the final
and would be exactly the same regardless of which clubs were in the final.

"We'd urge fans not to buy tickets from bodies and individuals not
officially recognised by Uefa, mainly because in some cases we aren't
convinced the tickets even exist.

"But whenever we spot cases like this we take action. We're aware of
tickets being offered for sale on the internet, and not only on ebay,
and the matter is now in the hands of our legal team."

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