Government fails to get tough with touts
Thursday, 9 October 2008 5:42 PM
England fans are losing out to ticket touts despite reassurance from the government that it would tackle the problem.
Tickets for England's home qualifier with Kazakhstan are being sold for around £260 each by touts - nearly four times their value.
Liberal Democrat sport spokesman Don Foster attacked the government for failing to act on the problem.
"Ministers have made promise after promise to clamp down on touting, but it seems they're completely incapable of acting on their words," he said.
There was actually a 73 per cent decrease in the number of prosecutions of football touts over the last six years, and only 15 convictions for touting offences in 2006/07.
The government announced in April this year it was launching a voluntary agreement to ensure tickets for key events would not be resold.
In May, sports secretary Andy Burnham called for a stronger system of ticket allocation around sporting events of national significance.
Section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 makes it a criminal offence for an unauthorised person to "sell a ticket for a designated football match, or otherwise to dispose of such a ticket to another person."
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