Industry News

AFL criticised for not moving to ban ticket resale for finals

Fans are urging the AFL Aussie rules football league to stop its official ticket seller, Ticketek, from allowing the resale of seats at inflated prices.

During the first week of the AFL’s finals, Ticketmaster Resale, the ticketing giant’s secondary platform, has advertised tickets for upwards of A$700 (£426/€469/$562).

In addition, many fans were turned away at the gates in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide having apparently been sold duplicate tickets via resale platforms.

The Herald Sun newspaper reports that the AFL has refused to comment on whether it would confront Ticketmaster about removing finals tickets from its resale site.

AFL Fans’ Association president Gerry Eeman said fans were tired of the AFL “taking the moral high ground, but not rolling up their sleeves and doing anything about it’’.

“Why are we last to the party when we’re the biggest sport that sells the most tickets?’’ Eeman said.

Geelong fans Suse McLean and Dave Beard, from Jan Juc, told the Herald Sun that they bought tickets from Viagogo for A$340, only to be turned away at the gate for having a duplicate ticket.

“When we went to scan in, a red cross came up and it said ‘already in’ — we had been sold dodgy tickets that had been sold to other people as well,’’ Beard said. “I don’t want anyone to go through what we did.’’

Prior to the start of the finals, the AFL cautioned its fans to steer clear of resale site Viagogo when looking to buy finals tickets.

With the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions (ACCC) announcing that it was taking Viagogo to federal court over alleged misleading representations and its booking fees, the AFL advised its fans to only purchase tickets through official seller Ticketek.

The league released the warning following complaints of an arduous buying experience for fans attempting to secure tickets on Ticketek for the qualifying final between Geelong and Richmond.

Image: Sashcha Wenninger