Tennis: All England all-clear

Wednesday 24 March 1993 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

THE All England Club was yesterday cleared of 'unfair trading practices' in relation to the sale of Wimbledon tickets after an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading.

The former England and Lions rugby union international, Mike Burton, had accused the Wimbledon authorities of operating a cartel in an attempt to dominate the secondary market in tickets for the championships. His complaint centred on allegations that the All England Club allowed debenture holders' tickets to be bought and sold for inflated prices while banning the resale of other tickets.

Burton, chairman of the Mike Burton Sports Marketing Group, claimed that the club repurchased debenture holders' tickets, then resold them at a further mark-up with the consequence that they were only available to his corporate hospitality clients at artificially inflated prices.

While the OFT concluded that the All England Club had a monopoly in Wimbledon tickets, the director general, Sir Bryan Carsberg, said: 'They were not in a monopoly position in the market for corporate hospitality. Their efforts to control the leakage of tickets from their original holders into the secondary market for Wimbledon tickets could not be regarded as an abuse of market power.'

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in