The £1,000 cup final tickets
Martin Dillon
FURIOUS Manchester United fans have condemned football chiefs after a M.E.N. investigation revealed tickets for the FA Cup Final clash against Arsenal are being sold on the black market for nearly £1,000.
We have handed over a dossier of evidence about the scandal to police in Cardiff and their football intelligence unit has promised to investigate.
Both clubs have received an allocation of around 25,000 tickets priced between £25 and £90 for the game at the Millennium Stadium which is a 72,000 sell-out.
But ticket touts have been cashing in on the high demand to see the match with prices on the black market as much as ten times higher than their face value.
Supporters point the finger of suspicion at the 17,000 tickets which are distributed among the county FAs and people working at the grassroots level of the game. A trawl of the internet by the M.E.N. revealed tickets are widely available for all parts of the ground - but at a high cost.
Tickets are available from various British companies despite ticket touting at football matches being illegal in this country and the M.E.N. also spoke to an American firm and one in Norway which offered us seats in the United end for nearly £1,000 each.
Genuine
Mark Longden, chairman of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, said: "It's absolutely outrageous. The FA argued that having the semi-finals at Cardiff would allow more genuine fans to watch the game and yet we get fewer tickets, that just shows how concerned the FA are about genuine fans.
"Most of the tickets for county associations and other parties seem to be the ones that are being touted, it's a complete disgrace."
Sean Conneally, 38, from Whitefield, said: "This sort of thing has been going on for years, fans are used to being taken for a ride by the likes of the FA. I know lads who have been to every home game but they still can't get a final ticket."
A spokeswoman for South Wales Police said: "We have passed on your information to our football intelligence unit who will contact the companies concerned and ask them to stop selling tickets in the first instance, reminding them that they may be committing an offence."
A spokesman for the FA said: "Ticket touting is illegal and we urge fans not to buy tickets on the black market because there is no guarantee they are genuine.
"Tickets have details of which body they were allocated to and anyone found to be involved in the illegal selling of tickets will face appropriate action and would almost certainly lose their right to receive tickets in the future."
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