Current Petitions

The Scottish Government has said that demand exceeds supply for only a small number of football matches, so it does not see the point of introducing legislation on the resale of football tickets, which would probably be expensive to enact. The Government states that there are not enough instances of the practice to justify legislation but that it expects the Scottish Football Association to have robust procedures in place to deal with it where it does happen.The Government has said no to the petitioner’s request and has given what I think are reasonable explanations as to why it does not want to introduce legislation in that regard. We are all against ticket touting for anything, but the Government’s response is fair enough in this case. I think that we can do no more with this petition and that we should close it.

Sorry, convener, but I am trying to keep up my track record, so I will say that we should not close the petition, because I think that there is an issue here. The petition seeks legislation to prohibit the resale of tickets for football matches in Scotland, but there is legislation on ticket touting in general in England and Wales and there is legislation on ticket sales for the London 2012 Olympic games. Interestingly, the SPICe briefing that we received on the petition indicates that ticket touting was effectively outlawed in England and Wales in 1994 through United Kingdom legislation but no corresponding legislation seems to have been introduced in Scotland at that time.The Government’s stated position that it is up to the SFA to restrict ticket touting undermines what the petitioner is trying to achieve through his petition, which is to make it clear to ticket touts that they are not welcome and that legal action will be taken against them under Scottish legislation that prohibits them from reselling tickets. We have just secured places for another two Scottish football teams in Europe next season, so the petition might become more relevant given the number of European games that might take place in Scotland.We should ask the Government to rethink its view on having in place legislation similar to that in England and Wales so that we have uniform treatment of ticket touts across the UK.

Just to add to my earlier point on the legislation for ticket sales for the Olympics, which is a serious issue, a number of venues in Scotland will be used for the Olympics. There is legislation in England and Wales to deal with ticket touting for Olympic venues. Not having similar legislation in Scotland undermines the British Olympic Association’s efforts to prevent ticket touting for Olympic venues and activities.