EPL: Brighton foil £100,000 black market ticket sales in one day

 

Brighton & Hove Albion Football club has stated that it stopped over £100,000 black market ticket sales in one match day.

 

According to BBC Sports on Tuesday, the club said it is taking a firm stand against ticket touting, using cutting-edge technology and a newly appointed investigations officer to stop inflated resale activity and protect loyal fans.

 

Brighton urged its fans to avoid buying tickets from third-party sellers and buy directly from the club or risk losing their money altogether.

 

“We have identified hundreds of unauthorised resale tickets today. Based on black market prices, that’s around £100,000 worth of transactions we have stopped from falling into the hands of touts,” the club’s first-ever Tickets Investigation Officer, Joseph Sells said.

 

During the club’s recent Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur, Brighton blocked 285 tickets that were being resold illegally, with an estimated street value of £100,000.

 

“One striking example involved a family who unknowingly paid £6,000 for six tickets to see Manchester City only to be turned away at the gate.

“Stories like this underscore the growing risk fans face when buying from unofficial platforms.

 

“To identify touts, Brighton uses bespoke software that flags suspicious transactions, monitors resale sites, and applies a risk score to each purchase.

 

“The system is designed to detect red flags such as purchases made with prepaid cards issued in other countries or bulk buying attempts under fake names,” Sells said.

 

Sells added that fans caught with unauthorised tickets at the stadium are given a letter explaining the situation and advising them to contact their bank to report the purchase as fraud.

 

“Where possible, the club offers legitimate replacement seats from last-minute availability or hospitality allocations,” he stressed.

 

The wider Premier League is also moving to combat touting, with new rules requiring encrypted digital barcodes to make unauthorised resale harder.