NZ Rugby cancels 'fraudulent' All Blacks match tickets

New Zealand Rugby has cancelled more than 700 tickets for an All Blacks Test match against South Africa.

The sport's governing body in New Zealand said they were "fraudulent" tickets because they had been re-sold on the secondary market.

The match in Wellington on 27 July is nearly sold out.

A spokesman said sports fans who bought tickets from Viagogo and other re-sellers ran the risk of not being allowed in.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said it had been told by official ticketing agents that tickets were being sold through unauthorised channels and had decided to declare them invalid.

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"Unfortunately, it is highly likely that some of these tickets will have already been on-sold to unknowing fans on the secondary market," said NZR chief commercial officer Richard Thomas.

"Those fans may only discover their tickets are invalid when they present them at the gate at Westpac Stadium."

The decision means that 700 new tickets for the match at the 34,500-seat stadium will now be issued and made available via the official online ticket office.

Secondary ticketing websites have been under scrutiny by regulators for some time, prompted by concerns that music and sports fans are being ripped off by touts who use them to make huge profits.

Leading ticket re-seller Viagogo is under investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, which says the site is in breach of consumer protection rules.

Earlier this week, Google suspended Viagogo as an advertiser, saying it wanted to make sure that people using its platform to buy tickets had "an experience they can trust".

Which? magazine has described Viagogo as "a rogue operator", but the Geneva-based firm says it is compliant with UK consumer law.