Arsenal memberships withdrawn over black market tickets

 mentioned in a post a few days back that AISA have put out some interesting information of late.    The information below also comes from AISA and relates to ticket touting.

 

I have to admit I am utterly biased on this – I completely dislike touting, and would be much happier if there were none.  I appreciate I am in a position of privilege having purchased two silver memberships at the very start of the scheme (when it was the ticket registration scheme), so my partner and I can get to each game we want to.

 

But I’d like to think that I would have the same view even if I were not a member – tickets are expensive enough as it is, and the thought of genuine fan paying really high fees to buy a ticket from a tout is frustrating in the extreme.

 

So I read with interest that there have been 8 arrests for touting so far this season, and 7 bans from the area on match days have been handed out in court (of which some were hangovers from arrests last season).

 

According to AISA the police are now looking to seize the assets of touts, as well as getting banning orders.  This could mean in theory that the police could ask the court to seize the car or house of the tout, although this would only be in an extreme case. 

 

That number obviously is small, and clearly on the walk from Arsenal tube to the Ems there are still touts around.   But more to the point 400 memberships have been cancelled so far this season alone, after being linked to touted tickets; many more than in the past.

 

Now that is something else.  It means that the supply to the touts is drying up, and 400 more genuine supporters can get the right to tickets which were previously going on the black market.

 

According to AISA, “The new customer services and IT infrastructure is helping to create a “web” of intelligence on touts – linking memberships, addresses, credit cards and the like, and allowing more tickets to be stopped at the source.”

 

Long may it continue.