Black market tickets to see top players at Wimbledon are selling for as much as £20,000 as touts take advantage of increasing interest in Andy Murray.
Police said that Murray’s win on Saturday, which takes him through to the second week of Wimbledon, will double the price of tickets for the later games among ticket touts — many of whom paid only £800 for the original.
Police and local councils are trying to target the selling of tickets by using antisocial behaviour legislation to keep the touts away from the area.
They work with the All England Club, Wandsworth and Merton councils and community groups to gather intelligence on touts, and the Metropolitan Police has established a special two-week dispersal zone to keep the touts at bay.
They keep in regular contact with the touts themselves to establish if any are selling forged tickets, while touts, in turn, manage to avoid arrest by being careful about what they say when selling tickets.
Advertisement
“There is a distinct difference between saying, ‘Any tickets for sale?’ and ‘Tickets for sale’,” said Sergeant Phil Davies, who is part of the police crackdown operation. “The touts know this.” Police also said that some touts — increasingly savvy about what they can and cannot do — have even hired solicitors to avoid prosecution.
One tout, who was trying to sell tickets last week, said that he had been touting at Wimbledon for 39 years. The 55-year-old, who asked to be identified only as Ray, said: “I have just got a job to do. I’m not a criminal or a paedophile — I sell and buy debenture tickets, that’s all. I’m not a crook.”
Sergeant Phil Davies, from the Metropolitan Police, said: “It may not seem all that serious but if someone is sold a ticket on the black market and then doesn’t get in to watch the tennis, it will ruin their Wimbledon experience for life.”
The reselling of debentures — five-year season tickets for Centre Court and No 1 Court — is permitted by the club although it encourages the use of authorised resellers.
Debenture tickets for the best games on Centre Court and Court One were being sold with £10,000 mark-ups outside the tournament in SW19 last week, police said, a mark-up that they expect to double for the second week of the championships.
Advertisement
“The debentures are a huge money earner for the professional touts,” Sergeant Davies said. “As the tournament progresses that is where the money is being made.”
He said that when British hopefuls such as Murray get further than expected, prices on the black market rise.
“If it is a predictable final the prices can start dropping but if you’ve got an unlikely hero the opposite happens.
“Murray tickets will bump up the prices by up to 200 per cent. One couple last year paid £14,000 each for Murray’s semi-final. They only stayed for a couple of hours.”
While the selling of debentures is permitted, the reselling and purchasing of tickets bought through the ballot contravenes the All England Club’s rules. Wimbledon organisers discourage people from reselling tickets won on the public ballot by blacklisting those found to be have resold their ticket without permission.
Advertisement
The organisation warns on its website against buying tickets from touts, saying “they will not gain you entry to the grounds”. In practice, with tickets labelled for a certain court rather than an individual, it is very difficult to prevent reselling.
Chief Superintendent Chris Bourlet, who leads police operations at the All England Club, said: “We are not going to stop the touting businesses by doing what we do. We simply want to disrupt it as much as possible to keep security at the All England Club intact.”