It has been revealed by the Daily Express that ticket touts are charging up to almost £11,000 a ticket for the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Aston Villa.
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The face value of official tickets ranges from £50 to £120, but it seems that some are willing to pay far more than that to see their team in action at Wembley. One seller on FootballTicketPad is charging £21.230 for a pair, including an extortionate £1,930 booking fee. Similar sites in Spain are also offering pairs of seats for up to a rip off £7,800.
This has come about after just 50,000 of the 90,000 seats were offered to fans of the side involved. To put this in perspective, Arsenal by themselves have 45,000 season ticket holders for their 25,000 allocation. Of the other seats, 17,000 have been given to Club Wembley members, some of which are being offered by the touts. The remaining 23,000 have gone to other professional clubs, county associations, volunteers, and corporate sponsors.
An FA spokesperson said: “As well as the 50,000 ticket split between the two finalists, approximately 20,000 tickets are distributed to volunteers through the football family which includes counties, leagues, local clubs and charities.
“As the Cup final is part of the Club Wembley membership package, Club Wembley’s membership receive around 17,000 tickets.
“The FA reminds all fans to only purchase FA Cup final tickets through official sources and that ticket touting is a breach of the Violent Crime Reduction Act.”