Scottish Rugby has severed its ties with Viagogo, after earlier this year defending its relationship with the controversial secondary ticketing site following a scandal at the start of the Six Nations championship.
Back in March, Scottish Rugby admitted that it had directly handed over an allocation of tickets to the resale site, with some of those seats being sold at 17 times face value.
The Daily Record found that £115 tickets to see England versus Scotland at Twickenham were being sold for £1,956 once Viagogo had added their £458 in VAT and fees.
The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) has been in partnership with Viagogo since 2013, but now seems to have given into pressure from fans about abandoning its link with the platform.
Scottish Rugby said: “Scottish Rugby’s relationship with secondary ticket partner Viagogo ended earlier this year and will not be renewed.”
Fan Wesley Cameron, a seat holder at Murrayfield uncovered the dropping of Viagogo after he contacted the SRU to ask if they intended sticking with the Switzerland-based firm, according to the Daily Record.
Wesley said: “I’ve been looking at the way Viagogo do business and couldn’t believe the SRU would have such a long-running association with them.
“Everything Viagogo do is set up to extract as much cash as they can from a fan, regardless of the face value of the ticket.
“The SRU churned out the same load of nonsense about how Viagogo protected fans from fraud but that made them look stupid.
“I guess they are due a bit of credit now and I’m very interested to see what they come up with next in terms of what they will do to protect fans who might have a ticket they want to sell on.”
In addition, Wesley said that after attempting to sell a ticket on Gumtree, the SRU contacted him stating that he could only resell with Viagogo.
He said: “It was clear to me that the majority of people trying to get their hands on my tickets were touts, trying to sell them on for further profit.”
Image: Edinburgh Blog
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