Black market match tickets seized in Vienna clampdown

About 300 black market tickets had been confiscated from touts by Vienna police during Euro 2008, including 155 before last Sunday's quarter-final between Spain and Italy, organisers UEFA said yesterday.

"I think it was the first time a large number of tickets were seized from touts," UEFA's director of communications William Gaillard told a news conference.

The clampdown probably explained the large blocks of empty seats in the Italian section of the 51,000-capacity Ernst Happel stadium for the game, which Spain won on penalties.

Touts have been openly selling tickets in host cities in Austria and Switzerland throughout the June 7-29 tournament, with some sellers coming over from Britain and the United States purely to trade.

"The whole issue of touting, or black market ticketing, is related to how good the national laws are," Gaillard said.

"Some countries are better protected than others and Austria is better protected than Switzerland."

Swiss authorities have said they are powerless to intervene due to liberal local laws on the selling of goods in public.

"We clamped down in Portugal in 2004 and have been very successful in UK courts fighting this kind of problem, which hits fans, especially those of limited means," Gaillard said.