MP calls for ticket-touting ban

Ticket-touting should be banned at big sporting events including Wimbledon, an MP said today.

It is currently only illegal to re-sell tickets for professional football matches but Sharon Hodgson, Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland North, is calling for the ban to include other major competitions where tickets can change hands for thousands of pounds, the BBC reported.

Other events which would be included under her proposals are the Grand National and Six Nations Rugby.

"What I want is legislation that makes it a criminal offence to buy up large numbers of tickets, with a view to selling them at a profit," she told the Corporation.

"If that wasn't allowed, people wouldn't do it."

Ms Hodgson believes legislation banning the reselling of tickets for the London Olympics could be extended.

Websites should be regulated more tightly, she said, so they are obliged to pass on tickets at face value with an additional but fixed charge for re-selling.

But Jonathan Brown, from the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (Star), told the BBC that touting would continue where there is a demand.

"As long as there are people willing to pay those prices, there's somebody there waiting to sell it to you," he said.