Time to go after the touts

It is interesting to note that problems have arisen in Nagano in Japan in addressing the problem of black market tickets for the Winter Olympics there. This has been a major problem in many countries down the years, not least in Ireland, and the fact that the Olympic movement wishes to stamp out the black market trade will come as a boost to the campaign to ban it.

Of course the problem is: how can you go about doing this? No more than here at home, Japan does not have a law which forbids such activity and this left the police with a problem in dealing with it. A spokesman for the Nagano police said that unless the touts broke the law, by forcing people to buy or by selling counterfeit tickets, for instance, there was no way that the problem could be solved.

One tout from Europe was selling tickets for an ice hockey match between the United States and Canada at more than four times their face value. What really annoyed Olympic organisers was that complimentary tickets distributed by the organising committee had been traced to the black market.

Here at home we have had this problem for many years and little or nothing has been done about it. Genuine soccer, Gaelic football, hurling and rugby supporters are constantly complaining that, in spite of supporting the games through thick and thin, when it comes to the big matches they cannot obtain tickets.

It is therefore infuriating to discover that people who have no connection whatever with the sport have fistfulls of tickets to sell outside the grounds. This writer has a personal experience of the frustration which this can cause. A Scottish friend who had travelled hopefully was becoming desperate when, as we approached Lansdowne Road, a tout with a bundle of tickets approached and demanded, trenchantly, £50 for a £15 ticket. The bargaining became a trifle heated until a young member of the Garda approached, pulled a ticket out of his pocket and handed it to my amazed friend.

As we drifted on we looked back to see the Garda feeling the texture of the tout's collar and ordering him off the street. We both felt a good deal better.

The problem of touts has never been properly addressed by the authorities here in spite of efforts from the sporting bodies themselves and by individuals. Regular efforts have been made, to my knowledge, in the GAA, the IRFU and the FAI to try to trace tickets and impose some form of sanction on the source.

Tickets have been bought on the black market by officials in order to trace their source and, although punishments have been imposed on some of the culprits, the problem has endured. Some years ago this column made an approach to Pat Rabbitte, the Democratic Left TD, and at that time he put down a Private Members motion for discussion by the Dail. Unfortunately the motion never managed to get on the order of business.

Perhaps it could be made an offence to sell tickets for sporting and other cultural events above the price printed on the ticket. Official vendors of tickets for pop concerts and other such events have begun to add on a handling charge to the price of the ticket. New legislation, carefully drafted, could operate in the best interests of genuine patrons. Even under present legislation it might be possible to prosecute touts under legislation which regulates street traders.