The Clubs Action Against Ticket Touting
The Club would like to thank our supporters for their support so far this Season, both at The Emirates and on the road. We are aware of high demand for match tickets, which far exceeds supply. This has led to increased levels of ticket touting, and we want to communicate with our fans, the robust action we’re taking to stop this illegal activity. Under section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, it is a criminal offence for an unauthorised person to sell a ticket for a designated football match. We’d like to urge supporters, who have been unsuccessful in the ballot or are not a Member, to not buy tickets via any unauthorised websites or from anyone advertising ticket availability on Social Media.
The Premier Leagues website lists unauthorised websites, which can be found here.
What The Club are doing?
Online
In our attempts to put match tickets, in the hands of genuine supporters, we’ve significantly increased the level of protection on out ticketing platforms. This has resulted in us banning many IP addresses being blocked, linked to suspected Bot activity. We do understand the frustration when supporters see match tickets being advertised on unauthorised websites, for exorbitant prices. Buying via such sites listed on the Premier League website or on Social Media, runs a very high risk of paying heavily inflated prices and not receiving any match tickets. Often, counterfeits may be sent, which ultimately will not grant access to the Ground. At the Match Day Box Office, we deal with hundreds of supporters at every Home game, who have purchased fake tickets. While we carry out random mystery shops to try and catch out resellers online, many of these sites are hosted and registered outside of the UK and are therefore not within jurisdiction of UK law. Subsequently because of this, there is very little we can do to shut the sites down.
A Social Media scam that the Club are seeing more, are from people without tickets and Membership, placing adverts in Facebook groups, on X (formally Twitter), as well as other platforms. Once they open a communication, a deposit is often required before the rest of the ‘ticket price’, as well as, what they call ‘A Name Change Fee’. Which they will say, is being charged by the Club. Unfortunately, what happens once these fee’s have been transferred, they then ‘Block’ the purchaser across all methods of communication. If you have been the victim of touting, please report it to us by emailing touting@arsenal.co.uk. Please provide proof of transaction and any Membership Numbers or seat details if they’ve been provided.
Matchdays
On a matchday we hold 100-200 tickets for collection, enabling us to ID check any tickets we suspect that have been sold illegally. Any tickets that are not collected, the Memberships are cancelled. Whilst we do acknowledge, we may inconvenience the genuine support, this is an important tool for the Club. Around the surrounding areas of the Ground, we work closely with the Police, as well as an experienced anti-touting task force that helps identify ticket touts ‘working’ close to the Emirates.
At Away matches, tickets have been held back a small number of tickets that have been previously linked to banned Members. Our intention next Season, is to increase the number of checks at Away games, to ensure these tickets are going to genuine supporters. With our new processes and security measures, the likelihood of being caught, banned and losing your Membership is very high. We strongly advise against selling and buying tickets illegally.
