It's the bane of fans across all sports. Tickets with a face value of €80 being sold online for figures that would make Jesus openly weep.
According to the Irish Independent, there were two websites attempting to sell All-Ireland final tickets for both the hurling and football showpieces in September for a whopping €495, and €650 each depending on the location in Croke Park.
The GAA issued a warning in response that they will deal severely with ticket touts, and anyone who attempts to gain entry into Croke Park with questionable tickets will not be allowed in.
The GAA has procedures in place to deal with touts, including finding and sourcing where the offending tickets come from, given that they should know the origin of all of the tickets issued.
We have the facility to cancel any ticket in any part of the ground if we know that it has been sold on the black market. If someone gets a ticket off a website or through some other touting source, they could well find themselves blocked at the turnstiles. They can end up with an expensive ticket that’s useless.
We have done that in the past. Every year, we have thousands of genuine GAA supporters who can’t get tickets, which is why we have a zero-tolerance policy.
At the moment, there is no legislation in Ireland over touting like in Brazil - but the GAA head of communications Alan Milton added that he would welcome such a move.
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Picture credit: Matt Browne / SPORTSFILE
