Ashes fans warned they could be turned away
Fans traveling from England to watch the Ashes have been warned by Cricket Australia that they could be turned away from grounds if they buy tickets from touts
Cricinfo staff
27-Jul-2006
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The Australian board, whose handling of ticket sales was roundly condemned, has hired a team of private investigators to sniff out touts and cancel tickets where they find they are on sale at inflated prices. All tickets have bar codes and these will be read at the turnstiles, enabling the authorities to cancel any which are deemed suspect. CA claims it has already done this to around 1300 tickets which were being sold on internet auction sites.
The opening four days of the Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney Tests are all sold out, as are the first three days of the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne.
Despite CA's continuing moves to get tough on touts, tickets were still being openly sold on the internet yesterday at vastly inflated prices. The board has been pressing eBay, the largest online auction site, to withdraw the relevant auctions but it has so far refused to do so. The company points out that while such sales might irk the board, they are not illegal.
While CA is getting tough now, many argue that it created the problem by its poor handling of the initial sales, with many genuine Australian fans left without tickets because of a failure of the board's systems to cope with demand. It is also likely that thousands of supporters from the UK will have genuine tickets as they got friends and family living in Australia to bypass the procedures by applying on their behalf.