If Liverpool and Manchester United can take this action – Why not Newcastle United? | OneFootball

Great to see Liverpool having been so proactive.

The Anfield club taking action over ticket touting.

James Pearce covers Liverpool for The Athletic.

He has covered the story of what Liverpool did last (2023/24) season to try and combat the selling on of tickets at vast profits, taking proper action, unlike Newcastle United.

The Athletic report – 31 October 2024:

‘Liverpool have issued 75 lifetime bans from Anfield in the ongoing battle over ticket touting.

Club also imposed a further 136 indefinite suspensions and shut down close to 100,000 fake ticketing accounts over course of last season.’

A further 5,670 accounts are currently under review for suspicious activity, including supplying people who have recently been charged by Merseyside Police with fraud related to ticket touting.

The majority of lifetime bans and indefinite suspensions were handed down for unauthorised selling of season tickets, memberships or hospitality tickets.

Accounts were deactivated following investigations or blocked from sales due to suspicious online activity or after being identified as bots.’

The thing is, plenty of other Premier League clubs are doing the same.

I have previously wrote about this (see below) on The Mag, what the likes of Manchester United and Brentford are doing.

Along with Liverpool, clubs employing staff specifically to try and stop the outrageous number of tickets that end up on secondary selling sites, as outlined below.

Time for Newcastle United to step up and do the same, instead of pretending that all the tickets on secondary selling sites don’t really exist!

My previous article on The Mag – 5 May 2024:

Newcastle United tickets, the holy grail for fans these days.

Getting hold of Newcastle United tickets this season has become so much worse.

The club refusing to give any details on membership ballots for home games, how many have applied for a game, how many tickets were available, what the success rate was. Other clubs such as Arsenal DO give this kind of information to their members after each ballot.

We know there are a lot more members this season as the club refused to cap the number of memberships sold, unlike last season. The Newcastle United owners also refusing to say how many memberships have been sold.

So basically, you have zero idea how many other Newcastle United members there are and how many of them are entering the ballots each match.

The other side of the equation is also of course how many tickets are available in these ballots for St James’ Park ballots.

So a double whammy.

When it comes to Newcastle United tickets, members have no idea of how many tickets there are in any ballot AND how many members applying.

It simply feels like to myself and other members I speak to, that there appears to be less tickets available compared to last season and far more members trying to get them. Last season members had to join an online queue on a particular day to try and get tickets for a particular match, so difficult to compare as the system isn’t exactly the same. However, considering results were far better last season, you wouldn’t have thought it should be now so much more difficult.

Earlier this season, NUFC CEO Darren Eales claimed that it was a one in three chance, that Newcastle United members had so far experienced up to that point for Premier League ballots at SJP (end of November 2023 if memory serves me right).

Well, by that point and now up to date, I can tell you that this definitely hasn’t been the experience for myself and those I speak to.

I don’t know a single member who for home Newcastle United tickets this season, has had a one in three success rate or better.

The ones I know of, have experienced everything from no tickets at all so far in home ballots, up to around one in five (20 per cent) at best. My own experience has been three successes from nineteen ballots entered.

We all understand that demand exceeds supply and that Newcastle United need a far bigger capacity stadium, whether that is an enlarged St James’ Park or on a new site.

However, surely Newcastle United members deserve at least some transparency from the club’s owners and senior employees, when it comes to how many members are applying for each ballot and how many tickets there are for any particular game.

The disappointment and frustration of not getting any Newcastle United tickets yet again for the recent Tottenham match, was then compounded when you see stuff like this , after the ballot had ended (I wrote about similar after the West Ham ticket ballot).

This is from a business called ‘Live Football Tickets’, who have been established since 2006 and offer for sale (resale) tickets for football matches all over the world, including all Premier League clubs.

When you went in and looked at Newcastle v Tottenham specifically…

Live Football Tickets describe themselves as…

‘We’re a leading secondary marketplace for football tickets. Prices are set by sellers and may be above or below face value.

We have created an online marketplace to make hard-to-get tickets available to anyone providing quality customer service. Ticket prices on our site are determined by supply and demand (market value) by ticket specialists (the sellers). Since supply and demand are what drive the prices, today the prices can be low and tomorrow they may be higher, it can always change.

Fans need to place orders with LiveFootballTickets not only because we have a friendly customer service, leading security and a money back guarantee – they also come to us since it’s so difficult to get tickets from the primary sources – especially for the biggest matches. So this is why those hard-to-get tickets are listed by the sellers above face value.’

The only thing that raised a laugh with me was when they stated for those interested in buying tickets at St James’ Park…

‘Buy your Newcastle United tickets securely online and support the team in their battle to stay in the English Premier League. Live Football Tickets offers you a wide range of Premier League tickets for the season 2023-2024.’

Really giving it the hard sell, come and see Newcastle United in their relegation struggle!

Of course, they don’t need to give it the hard sell for fans desperately trying to get Newcastle United tickets, as demand massively exceeds to supply.

I am never going to use one of these reselling sites myself but at the end of March I clicked in and started the process of buying a couple of Newcastle v Tottenham tickets…

So my understanding of how their system works at Live Football Tickets (and other reselling sites), is that those in possession of Newcastle United tickets list them on this site and decide the price they are up for, that money they then bank if the tickets are sold, not sure if the website gets a percentage of that. However, what does seem clear is that the £117.00 ( 2 x £58.50 ‘service fee’) does go to Live Football Tickets.

A very lucrative business if you are being the conduit for trading thousands and thousands of tickets every week for matches around the world.

So what are the Newcastle United owners and senior staff doing about all these Newcastle United tickets for SJP matches ending up on reselling sites?

Well, not a lot, indeed nothing it would appear. I certainly haven’t heard anything of members or season ticket holders getting in trouble this season for selling their tickets on, via these reselling sites, for prices vastly over the top of what they paid.

On the other hand, I HAVE heard of countless instances of so many Newcastle United away fans having issues with the club’s draconian policy of trying to prevent away tickets getting passed on for face value. In all my years of following NUFC, I have never witnessed anybody charging a penny more when selling on an away ticket to another Newcastle fan.

Not only have I not seen or heard of any action taken by the club against those touting Newcastle United tickets for home matches, many NUFC fans claim that Newcastle United CEO Darren Eales has previously stated that these tickets on reselling sites don’t actually exist!

Hmmm. Whilst I have no time at all for sites such as Live Football Tickets, I don’t believe that they have existed for close to 20 years if their business model is to put on sale fake tickets and take money off people under false pretences.

Indeed, many Newcastle United fans said before and after that Tottenham ballot ended, that they themselves have bought tickets on reselling sites, including Live Football Tickets.

Whether the reselling sites are acting illegally or not isn’t my point here, though my understanding is that it is indeed illegal to sell tickets on at a price over face value.

My point is, what exactly are Newcastle United doing about it?

Other Premier League clubs are certainly doing plenty about it.

‘Last season the club issued more than 2,000 ticket touting related sanctions following intelligence gathered by our dedicated team. This work included tracking tickets listed on a variety of websites and social media platforms, as well as targeted activity at both home and away matches.’

A number of years ago, Man U even created a special dedicated role for somebody to head up the battle against those reselling Manchester United tickets at a profit, the current person in that role appears to be Ryan Wood.

So are Darren Eales and others seriously claiming that Newcastle United tickets on reselling sites are all fake, that they don’t exist?

Well if that’s the case, then it is surely ludicrous, as why would Manchester United be employing staff specifically to try and track down those fans and others touting tickets on reselling sites and elsewhere???

So, the question is.

What exactly are NUFC doing to track down and punish those fans and others that are touting SJP tickets far above face value? To try and ensure that instead far more Newcastle United tickets are available for genuine fans via member ballots and so on?

If somebody is ill on the day of an away match and at the last minute another fan uses that away ticket having bought it at face value, is the appropriate action to threaten to take away their loyalty points and even threaten to take away their season ticket, or even far worse, actually carry these threats out?

When it comes to what is important to supporters, then surely nothing more important than a fair and transparent process of how ticket sales are handled for both home and away matches, plus appropriate action taken by the club to ensure that as much as possible, tickets end up in the hands of genuine fans.

If we needed any further convincing as to why Newcastle United HAVE to do something about so many home match tickets ending up on these sites, just look at what Brentford have just announced.

On Saturday, the West London club releasing the following.

Over 300 memberships revoked since Manchester United fixture

Earlier this year, we acknowledged the ongoing impact ticketing touting has been having on our matchdays with a number of individuals and organisations claiming to have the ability to sell official Brentford tickets. This issue, and the related problem of away fans in home areas, continues to be taken seriously by the club. It also features heavily in our discussions with Bees United and BIAS representatives in our fan advisory board and working group meetings.

Updates from recent fixtures

When Brentford faced Liverpool at the Gtech in February this year, we blocked or ejected more than 120 individuals in advance of the game who we either believed purchased tickets from unauthorised sources or were supporting Liverpool in the home area.

The majority of these individuals never made it into the stadium having been stopped or blocked before getting to the turnstiles.

Across our recent fixtures against Manchester United, Brighton and Sheffield United, our operations led to hundreds of individuals either being ejected, refused entry or blocked due to ticket touting which resulted in more than 300 individuals being sanctioned with stadium bans issued and memberships revoked.

How we are tackling ticket touting

We will continue to ensure that there are severe repercussions for anyone who buys or sells tickets through unauthorised channels.

Ticket touting breaches our acceptable behaviour policy and those engaging in it will face lengthy match bans.

Our box office and stewarding teams are also working hard to identify ticket touting operations to proactively stop unfair ticket distribution with ongoing measures. These include:

Monitoring unauthorised reseller websites and capturing necessary information from advertised tickets to identify these on our ticketing system

Policing any suspicious booking or sales behaviour, including taking action against those who have purchased tickets with the incorrect tariffs

Reviewing actual attendance records at games of any individuals in question

Gathering information from fans who have been the victim of touted tickets to identify sellers

Reviewing collection processes and carrying out ID checks to ensure genuine Brentford fans are obtaining tickets

Post fixture reviews with sanctions being applied accordingly

A review of our sales process in conjunction with our fan groups before the beginning of the next season will also take place.

Helping our process

Brentford tickets should not be bought from any unauthorised ticketing platforms. Doing so runs the risk of that ticket being blocked and you will not get into the stadium. You may lose out financially with little scope of being recompensed.

Fans are reminded that if they cannot attend a home league game they should list their season ticket or premium seat on the club’s ticket exchange, giving members the opportunity to purchase them online.

We encourage you to inform us if you have been offered tickets or have any information in relation to tickets being offered outside of the stadium. Please report it to the nearest steward or email report@brentfordfc.com. All information is treated in the strictest confidence and is never disclosed to third parties. Please aim to do this as soon as you have this information so we can deal with ticket touts quickly and effectively.

We thank you for your continued support in ensuring Brentford home tickets are purchased and sold fairly to Bees fans only.’

Over to Darren Eales and the Newcastle United owners, stop pretending that these touted Newcastle United tickets for home matches are imaginary, do something about it!!