Legal Row Over Ebay World Cup Tickets

The organizers of the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany are furious after tickets found their way on to the black market just 48 hours after the first sales period ended.

The lucky recipients of the initial batch of tickets had hardly had time to comprehend that they were going to the World Cup when it was reported that the first offers for resale appeared on the Internet auction portal eBay, an unwelcome development the World Cup Organizing Committee (OK) had feared all along.

The OK had gone to great lengths to ensure tickets were purchased through the proper channels but, even though it was resigned to the fact that resales would happen, the members of the committee were caught out by the speed of the development and what to do about it.

"This is the sort of thing we were keen to avoid," OK vice-president Horst R. Schmidt told the German Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "We will take all the legal measures we can to combat it."

Committee advises fans not to buy auction tickets

Schmidt confirmed that the OK had asked eBay not to sell World Cup tickets but the two had failed to come to an agreement. "I can only advise the fans not to buy tickets via an auction," said Schmidt. "There are still a lot of tickets on offer." In total 2.93 million tickets are on sale to the general public and only the first batch of 812,000 tickets have been sold with four more sales periods still to come.

But the OK and football's governing body FIFA have been inundated with e-mails complaining about the shortage of tickets available to football fans and with demand outstripping supply many fans have turned to the black market.

However, those supporters hoping to beat the complicated system by purchasing World Cup tickets may find out that ultimately they are operating in a false economy. The lucky bidders may be getting cheaper, easier-to-buy tickets but when it comes to match day, they may be barred from entering the stadium.

Tickets may lead to refused entry

"Fans obtaining tickets in this way may find themselves denied admission at the turnstiles. Everyone knows that tickets are personalized and cannot be transferred without a genuinely pressing reason, and then only with the Organizing Committee's approval," Schmidt told the official FIFA world cup Web site.

"There could be problems if the ticket and personal ID fail to match, exactly as there would be with an airline ticket. We've said it often enough before, and we're saying it again: tickets are only transferable for good reasons - and profiteering isn't a good reason."

The OK is also concerned that supporters are paying over the odds for tickets through other channels than the official one. Tickets via the FIFA portal start at 35 euros, rising to 600 euros for the most expensive ticket at the Final. Tickets being sold on eBay are going for between 800 and 1,000 euros for a match in the last sixteen.

EBay unsure of what laws have been broken

The committee is now considering taking legal action as the official terms and conditions of sale have, it claims, been breached, and copyrights infringed. "The people making these offers do not have the right to transfer tickets allocated to them to third parties," Schmidt added.

But there is some debate whether the resale of tickets on eBay is illegal. The operators of the online auction portal are demanding more details as to which laws or regulations it may have broken and what the future implications might be. The case becomes even more complicated given that the company works across various borders.

EBay also sells used or expired tickets which are bought in the manner of stamps. Presently eBay.de rules do not inhibit any "live" ticket sales and, therefore, present sellers fall within the rules of the site. Whether they are within the state laws would be up to a court -- should any case get that far.