Newcastle United tickets scandal – Why isn’t the club taking action? | OneFootball

Newcastle United tickets, the holy grail for fans these days.

Getting hold of Newcastle United tickets this season has become so much worse.

The club refusing to give any details on membership ballots for home games, how many have applied for a game, how many tickets were available, what the success rate was. Other clubs such as Arsenal DO give this kind of information to their members after each ballot.

We know there are a lot more members this season as the club refused to cap the number of memberships sold, unlike last season. The Newcastle United owners also refusing to say how many memberships have been sold.

So basically, you have zero idea how many other Newcastle United members there are and how many of them are entering the ballots each match.

The other side of the equation is also of course how many tickets are available in these ballots for St James’ Park ballots.

So a double whammy.

When it comes to Newcastle United tickets, members have no idea of how many tickets there are in any ballot AND how many members applying.

It simply feels like to myself and other members I speak to, that there appears to be less tickets available compared to last season and far more members trying to get them. Last season members had to join an online queue on a particular day to try and get tickets for a particular match, so difficult to compare as the system isn’t exactly the same. However, considering results were far better last season, you wouldn’t have thought it should be now so much more difficult.

Earlier this season, NUFC CEO Darren Eales claimed that it was a one in three chance, that Newcastle United members had so far experienced up to that point for Premier League ballots at SJP (end of November 2023 if memory serves me right).

Well, by that point and now up to date, I can tell you that this definitely hasn’t been the experience for myself and those I speak to.

I don’t know a single member who for home Newcastle United tickets this season, has had a one in three success rate or better.

The ones I know of, have experienced everything from no tickets at all so far in home ballots, up to around one in five (20 per cent) at best.

The latest ballot of Newcastle United tickets was last week for Tottenham at SJP in April.

My last Premier League success was Palace back in October and since then nothing.

I know personally of just two different people (members) who got tickets for this Spurs match

We all understand that demand exceeds supply and that Newcastle United need a far bigger capacity stadium, whether that is an enlarged St James’ Park or on a new site.

However, surely Newcastle United members deserve at least some transparency from the club’s owners and senior employees, when it comes to how many members are applying for each ballot and how many tickets there are for any particular game.

The disappointment and frustration of not getting any Newcastle United tickets yet again for this Tottenham match, is then compounded when you see stuff like this , after the ballot has ended (I wrote about similar after the West Ham ticket ballot).

This is from a business called ‘Live Football Tickets’, who have been established since 2006 and offer for sale (resale) tickets for football matches all over the world, including all Premier League clubs.

When you go in and look at Newcastle v Tottenham specifically…

Live Football Tickets describe themselves as…

‘We’re a leading secondary marketplace for football tickets. Prices are set by sellers and may be above or below face value.

We have created an online marketplace to make hard-to-get tickets available to anyone providing quality customer service. Ticket prices on our site are determined by supply and demand (market value) by ticket specialists (the sellers). Since supply and demand are what drive the prices, today the prices can be low and tomorrow they may be higher, it can always change.

Fans need to place orders with LiveFootballTickets not only because we have a friendly customer service, leading security and a money back guarantee – they also come to us since it’s so difficult to get tickets from the primary sources – especially for the biggest matches. So this is why those hard-to-get tickets are listed by the sellers above face value.’

The only thing that raised a laugh with me was when they stated for those interested in buying tickets at St James’ Park…

‘Buy your Newcastle United tickets securely online and support the team in their battle to stay in the English Premier League. Live Football Tickets offers you a wide range of Premier League tickets for the season 2023-2024.’

Really giving it the hard sell, come and see Newcastle United in their relegation struggle!

Now I don’t take much for granted but I am ready to say right here and now, that Newcastle United are not winning the Premier League, nor are they getting relegated from it!

Of course, they don’t need to give it the hard sell for fans desperately trying to get Newcastle United tickets, as demand massively exceeds to supply.

So my understanding of how their system works at Live Football Tickets (and other reselling sites), is that those in possession of Newcastle United tickets list them on this site and decide the price they are up for, that money they then bank if the tickets are sold, not sure if the website gets a percentage of that. However, what does seem clear is that the £117.00 ( 2 x £58.50 ‘service fee’) does go to Live Football Tickets.

A very lucrative business if you are being the conduit for trading thousands and thousands of tickets every week for matches around the world.

So what are the Newcastle United owners and senior staff doing about all these Newcastle United tickets for SJP matches ending up on reselling sites?

Well, not a lot, indeed nothing it would appear. I certainly haven’t heard anything of members or season ticket holders getting in trouble this season for selling their tickets on via these reselling sites for prices vastly over the top of what they paid.

On the other hand, I HAVE heard of countless instances of so many Newcastle United away fans having issues with the club’s draconian policy of trying to prevent away tickets getting passed on for face value, with Man City in the FA Cup the latest example of this, according to what I have read (as a member, St James’ Park tickets are seemingly now impossible, never mind away match tickets!). In all my years of following NUFC, I have never witnessed anybody charging a penny more when selling on an away ticket to another Newcastle fan.

Not only have I not seen or heard of any action taken by the club against those touting Newcastle United tickets for home matches, many NUFC fans claim that Newcastle United CEO Darren Eales has previously stated that these tickets on reselling sites don’t actually exist!

Hmmm. Whilst I have no time at all for sites such as Live Football Tickets, I don’t believe that they have existed for close to 20 years if their business model is to put on sale fake tickets and take money off people.

Indeed, many Newcastle United fans have said before and after this Tottenham ballot ended, that they themselves have bought tickets on reselling sites, including Live Football Tickets.

Whether the reselling sites are acting illegally or not isn’t my point here, though my understanding is that it is indeed illegal to sell tickets on at a price over face value.

My point is, what exactly are Newcastle United doing about it?

Other Premier League clubs are certainly doing plenty about it.

This is an article on the official Manchester United website:

‘Last season the club issued more than 2,000 ticket touting related sanctions following intelligence gathered by our dedicated team. This work included tracking tickets listed on a variety of websites and social media platforms, as well as targeted activity at both home and away matches.’

A number of years ago, Man U even created a special dedicated role for somebody to head up the battle against those reselling Manchester United tickets at a profit, the current person in that role appears to be Ryan Wood.

So are Darren Eales and others seriously claiming that Newcastle United tickets on reselling sites are all fake, that they don’t exist?

Well if that’s the case, then it is surely ludicrous, as why would Manchester United be employing staff specifically to try and track down those fans and others touting tickets on reselling sites and elsewhere???

So, the question is.

What exactly are NUFC doing to track down and punish those fans and others that are touting SJP tickets far above face value? To try and ensure that instead far more Newcastle United tickets are available for genuine fans via member ballots and so on?

If somebody is ill on the day of an away match and at the last minute another fan uses that away ticket having bought it at face value, is the appropriate action to threaten to take away their loyalty points and even threaten to take away their season ticket, or even far worse, actually carry these threats out?

Last week we saw the club release official minutes of Darren Eales and other club officials meeting the Newcastle United Fan Advisory Board for the first time. The minutes were a bit of a joke actually, if indeed what was detailed was the sum total of what was discussed and what the fans quizzed Eales and others on.

For this Fan Advisory Board to serve any useful purpose whatsoever, there needs to be total transparency AND the fans involved need to be pressing the club on matters that are important to supporters.

When it comes to what is important to supporters, then surely nothing more important than a fair and transparent process of how ticket sales are handled for both home and away matches, plus appropriate action taken by the club to ensure that as much as possible, tickets end up in the hands of genuine fans.