1500 WORD ESSAY

1500 word essay

1500 word essay

TICKET TOUTING AN UNFAIR PRACTICE

Ticket Touting an Unfair Practice

Ticket Touting an Unfair Practice

Introduction

There is no generally agreed definition of “touting”, but the term “tout” is commonly understood to be refer to someone who deliberately buys tickets to an event in order to resell them at a profit. In Scotland, ticket touting in a public place is an offence under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, but this offence requires an element of giving reasonable cause for annoyance. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland ticket touting is not in itself an offence. However, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 does prohibit any unauthorised person from selling tickets for designated football matches.3 The Act came into force in November 1994 (Buchanan, 1987).

Ticket Touting an Unfair Practice

Under section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, it is a criminal offence for an unauthorised person to tout tickets for football matches in public places, even if this is done on a day other than that on which the match is being played. It is also an offence to resell tickets in any way if this is done in the course of a trade or business - this seeks to catch mail order resale of tickets. These provisions only apply to tickets for designated football matches, i.e. those designated for the time being by orders made under section 1(1) of the Football Offences Act 1991.4 Currently, designated matches for these purposes include Football League, Premier League, European (UEFA) and international matches played at major grounds (Buchanan, 1987).

Amendments within the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 updated ticket touting provisions in connection with football to cover unauthorised internet ticket sales and other ticket touting practices designed to circumvent prosecution under pre-existing provisions. Associated secondary legislation,5 which came into force on 6 April 2007, reaffirms the policy of designating all football matches in England and Wales where disorder might arise from a failure to adequately segregate fans (which ticket touting can undermine). The accompanying explanatory memorandum elaborates:

This instrument is being made to establish the specific criteria of a designated association football match for the purposes of the football ticket touting legislation. The instrument replicates the existing designation of a regulated football match for the wider purposes of Part II of the Football Spectators Act 1989. Subsections (6) to (8) of section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 make provision for the Secretary of State to apply the section, with suitable modifications, to other specified sporting events or categories of sporting events for which 6,000 or more tickets are issued for sale. One of the main measures of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 involves a prohibition of street trading and outdoor advertising in the vicinity of Olympic venues and of ticket touting in connection with Olympic events. Section 31 of the 2006 Act is based on section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which deals with ...