"The transfer of touting from the street corner to the internet
rendered the original legislation out of date," said Lord Pendry, a
peer who backed the new law. "These new measures are the most
stringent laws against ticket touting anywhere in the world. The
key now is for football and the enforcement authorities to work
together to put them into practice and protect football and its
fans from touting."
The law allows people to buy tickets for friends as long as the
person to whom the tickets will be sold are known to them and that
all transactions are at face value.
The law is aimed both at making tickets available to fans at
affordable prices, and at combating hooliganism. The measures are
aimed to ensure that segregation between fans at matches is
effective as an anti-hooliganism measure.
Unofficial agencies have sprung up making large numbers of
tickets available for prices of up to 10 times face value. The
agencies have been widely blamed for increasing the numbers of
people attending on corporate packages, rather than grass roots
fans.
The law also introduces penalties for websites which carry
advertisement for agencies selling unofficial tickets, which has
become a criminal offence.
Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League
said that the move would benefit fans. "Clubs work extremely hard
to offer a range of ticket prices that are affordable and
accessible. However, this market has been distorted in recent years
by the rise of the internet tout," he said. "The authorities can
take appropriate and meaningful action against online touts and
prevent them making huge sums of money through this illicit
trade."
The law applies to people selling tickets on their own specially
set up websites, and also on third party websites such as eBay.
Premier League lawyers are said to have written to 300 agencies
in the UK and abroad warning them of the new law.
Two other important bills also received Royal Assent yesterday:
the Police and Justice Act 2006 was passed which, among other
measures, raises the maximum penalties for computer hacking and
making clear that launching a denial of service attack is an
offence; and the Fraud Act 2006 was passed, tidying the patchwork
of statutory fraud laws that previously existed in England and
Wales.
