BBC investigation exposes black market in Premier League tickets

A black market selling thousands of Premier League tickets has been revealed by a BBC investigation.

Companies based at a number of overseas locations, including in a Swiss town with a population of 4,000, are behind it.

They are thought to be using memberships and computer software to obtain tickets at scale through clubs' online ticket platforms.

The resale of tickets is illegal in the UK, and the Premier League names the websites on an "unauthorised list".

Despite this, BBC Sport was able to buy tickets easily through the black market for four of last weekend's games. The practice has been described as "endemic" in English football.

Sunday's Manchester derby was sold out weeks ago, but we bought a pair of tickets in the City end days before the match.

We also made purchases for fixtures at Arsenal, Everton and West Ham.

At all four matches, our journalists were able to use the tickets to gain entry to the game.

But for others who have used these websites, this is not always the case, with fans telling BBC Sport they paid for tickets that didn't let them into games.

The tickets cost us two to four times the face value, and some were sent via UK phone numbers on Whatsapp, on one occasion with strict instructions not to speak to stewards.

The findings have prompted calls for clubs, the Premier League and government to do more to crackdown on the black market.

There is concern that the scale of the market is making it harder for supporters to get tickets from official sources at face value - and also creating a potential safety threat to strict segregation rules.

In response, clubs said they were working hard in this area, and had already cancelled tens of thousands of memberships and tickets.

Concern practice is 'endemic across the game'

Nearly 33,000 tickets were listed for the four games we attended across these four websites

The Premier League’s "unauthorised" list of ticket sellers contains more than 50 websites. Including Stubhub and Vivid Seats, where Chelsea owner Todd Boehly is a director.

We chose to focus on four websites from this list that were accessible in the UK and appeared to be selling the most tickets.

The four sites in total listed tens of thousands of Premier League tickets for sale.

For example, more than 18,000 tickets were advertised for Arsenal v Nottingham Forest alone - nearly a third of the Emirates' capacity.

BBC Sport was not able to verify whether all these tickets were genuine beyond the ones we bought.

Ticket security expert Reg Walker believes "speculative listings - tickets these websites don't have" may explain the advertised numbers.

"In reality, probably only 10-25% of those tickets actually exist," he added.

For context, 10% would mean thousands of tickets for each round of Premier League matches.

Prices we saw ranged from £55 to £14,962, often far exceeding face value and usually including a significant booking fee.

"We had a family of Japanese tourists who paid £2,200 for tickets with an £87 face value," said Walker, who works with Premier League clubs as a consultant and has been operating in the ticketing industry for 40 years.

Tickets were even listed for Arsenal's exclusive Diamond Club and Manchester City's Tunnel Club.

The Football Supporters' Association called our findings "very concerning".

"It confirms what we've heard anecdotally...this is becoming endemic across the game," said FSA chair Tom Greatrex.

"Long-term supporters are finding it impossible to get tickets because of the way they are made available through secondary agencies."

The Premier League, which declined to comment on the findings, sees ticketing as primarily a responsibility of the clubs, but it is in the process of renewing its central support for club anti-touting operations.

Three of the tickets we received belonged to either members or season ticket holders

All our tickets were transferred digitally, in one instance on the morning of the game, and worked as mobile passes.

Seat numbers were not divulged until the tickets arrived.

For Everton's new Hill Dickinson Stadium, we ordered an upper tier, behind the goal seat.

What actually arrived was a Club View ticket near the halfway line - a private concourse for £1,200-a-season members - that included a free pint.

Days after the game at the Etihad, one digital ticket automatically changed in our mobile wallet - displaying a different seat number and appearing to be for the Champions League fixture against Napoli.

Only two of the clubs we visited responded to a request for comment on our findings.

Arsenal said they had cancelled almost 74,000 accounts attempting to obtain tickets in unauthorised ways as part of "strong action against ticket touting".

Everton said they have been running "joint operations with Merseyside Police to act against touts operating online and in person".

Companies 'exploiting a loophole and putting fans at risk'

Reselling football tickets is illegal in the UK, except on a club-approved exchange - a measure introduced to stop rival fans clashing on the terraces.

But the four companies used are registered abroad - in Spain, Dubai, Germany and Estonia - and beyond the scope of UK law.

Even so, they are all actively targeting UK customers with online ads, and sellers from Live Football Tickets, Seatsnet and Football Ticket Net contacted us from UK phone numbers.

Ticombo - the firm registered in Germany - had multiple offices in Engelberg, a mountain resort in central Switzerland with a population of 4,000.

It was the only company to respond to our findings, sending a statement from "Ticombo legal", saying it is a "trusted resale platform" and highlighting "the important role of secondary markets in promoting consumer choice and competition".

In its statement, it said that it categorically rejects allegations of wrongdoing or possible illegal practices.

Ticombo said that "regulations that completely prohibit ticket resale are envisaged to protect consumers but, in reality, only grant a monopoly for the organisers".

It even asked us to leave the company a positive Trustpilot review if we had a "positive experience" at the London Stadium.

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

"If we have a situation where segregation is undermined to such an extent that you have away fans in home areas, there is potential for an incident to occur."

Inside the Etihad alongside Man City's most ardent supporters

Our sports editor accessed this seat in the Etihad Stadium's South Stand with a ticket bought five days before the Manchester derby

There was plenty of choice for the Manchester derby on the "unauthorised" site we used just days before the game.

Opting for the cheapest ticket we could find, mine cost around three times face value and arrived via a link from a mobile phone a few days later.

It was accompanied with strict instructions.

I was told not to speak to security staff, that I must "go inside the stadium one hour before kick-off (no earlier)" and to delete the ticket after the match "for security purposes".

Adding to the suspicion, I was advised - if challenged over the ticket - to lie and say it was a free gift, because stadium staff "have an incentive to invalidate tickets".

Despite such warnings, my ticket was scanned without anything being flagged. No questions asked, entry was surprisingly easy.

The instructions also included a request not to wear away team colours.

It is clear why this advice is given. The ticket was for a seat in the home section, behind one of the goals. I was in with some of City's most ardent supporters.

Fans from several clubs have become increasingly frustrated by opposition supporters appearing in home sections.

My visit to the Etihad demonstrated the extent to which resale sites can undermine segregation rules designed to keep rival fans apart in the interests of safety.

We received this advice from Football Ticket Net (left) and another customer was sent these instructions from Live Football Tickets (right) for a game at Old Trafford

'It's an arms race'

None of the companies involved would provide details of the exact method they used to obtain tickets at such scale.

But more generally, many tickets that end up on the black market are acquired by touts using software bots and fake identities.

"You are talking about tens of thousands of memberships in the hands of touts at most clubs," said Walker.

"We identified over 900 memberships at a Premier League club that were under the control of one of the directors of these resale sites.

"It's an arms race."

Figures released by some clubs in the past year indicate the scale of the challenge:

• Arsenal removed 30,000 "suspicious entries" from their ticket ballots

• Chelsea blocked 350,000 "bot purchases"

• Liverpool shut down 100,000 "fake ticketing accounts"

Yet only 12 arrests were recorded by the Home Office last season for ticket touting anywhere in the top six tiers of English football.

Manal Smith was Arsenal's head of ticketing up until April.

She says the hardest part of her job was the "disappointment of a supporter who turns up and is denied entry".

We spoke to several fans who paid hundreds of pounds for tickets from "unauthorised" platforms and did not get to watch the game they had been looking forward to.

A 50th birthday trip from Devon to Old Trafford was ruined.

A 79-year-old Crystal Palace fan missed his team lifting the FA Cup at Wembley.

Smith's advice for anyone thinking of using one of these sites is this: "Just don't do it. Please don't do it."

Thousands of Premier League ticket listings can be traced to the town of Engelberg in the Swiss Alps