Tickets for next week’s Malta v Italy World Cup qualifying match are selling for €204.50 on online marketplace Viagogo – €129.50 more than the most expensive tickets sold officially.
The Malta Football Association’s highest official ticket price for the eagerly-anticipated game was €75 in the upper west stand, part of which is reserved for Italian supporters. North and south stand tickets were sold by the MFA for just €20.
The MFA confirmed that almost all the tickets for Tuesday’s game had been sold, with only a few seats remaining in the west stand.
But for those who missed out, a seller on Viagogo was yesterday advertising tickets in the area reserved for Italy fans for €150, plus a €22.50 booking fee, €27.95 for “shipping” and €4.05 for VAT.
Viagogo confirmed the seller had 12 tickets for sale at this price, which is listed first in US dollars. Prices of tickets on the website are set by the seller and can be above or below market value.
Viagogo says it guarantees that buyers receive tickets they pay for in time for the event. The Viagogo tickets were being promoted on unofficial Italian football news website www.italiansoccerseriea.com and its related Twitter account.
The Italian FA (FIGC) took 400 tickets from the MFA for the Italian section of the stadium, of which it distributed 180 to corporate sponsors.
Despite Italy’s close proximity to Malta, only 36 Azzurri supporters purchased tickets for the game through the FIGC, a spokesman told The Times.
This raises the prospect that many supporters from Italy will have purchased cheaper tickets in areas reserved for Maltese fans, causing potential problems with segregation.
The FIGC stopped selling its allocation last Friday, saying the remaining seats will not be sold to Malta fans.
MFA CEO Bjorn Vassallo said the Italian fans who booked tickets online for the section reserved for them had paid the same price (€75) as Maltese fans using the upper west stand, which was always the most expensive.
“We wanted there to be ample seats for the Maltese to enjoy the match in the stadium and not the Italians. I think it’s understandable,” he said.
“Also, the stadium does not have a dedicated area for away supporters, so you always have to use a human buffer. It is difficult to allow access in a sector where there are hardcore Maltese supporters.”
Tuesday’s game will take place at Ta’ Qali National Stadium in front of an expected full capacity crowd of 17,797.
The game will be the first time to have a capacity crowd for a Malta national team match for many years. Just over 14,000 had attended the grudge match against Turkey in 2007.
Despite the huge demand for tickets, the MFA distributed about 2,000 free tickets to football nurseries and voluntary organisations.
In February 2012, a British Channel 4 documentary entitled The Great Ticket Scandal, claimed that primary ticket sellers were allocating tickets to Viagogo and selling them at inflated prices after the event was supposedly sold out.
Mr Vassallo said the MFA had no agreement whatsoever with Viagogo .
pcooke@timesofmalta.com