New Ticket Law

In this day and age it makes sense to make using a passed on ticket an offence because we want stadiums to be a safe space for people to go and part of making that possible is knowing who is in the stadium. When Caraboa gave us tickets to give away for Caraboa cup matches we had to supply them with the names and addresses of the winners so they could be checked they weren't on a banning order for example otherwise someone who had been banned for causing trouble could have won, gone to the game and increased their chances of getting in and causing trouble. And I'm not sure what the level of checks when buying tickets actually goes but worst case is a known terror suspect could get into the ground on a passed on ticket and no-one know and you just have to see how often flames get smuggled in that if someone really wanted to get some kind of explosives in they could do it,

 

I don't know at your level but for most Premier League matches clubs allow season ticket holders to pass their unused ticket on but it has to be done via the club. So the person getting the ticket has to be a club member so they have the id info on the person and then it's transferred to them either via the ticket office or via the app. Or you can sell it back to the club for the face value of the ticket. So certainly with the PL if you handed a ticket on outside that system you would be in breach of the law

 

I don't think you have read the Act, it is far more wide ranging than just the tailgating which has been reported in the media.

The new legislation is the 'Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Act 2026' and the key wording is this:
"A person (“P”) commits an offence if—

(a) P enters, or attempts to enter, premises for the purpose of attending a designated football match, and

(b) at the time of entry or attempted entry, P does not have a match ticket for the match that P is eligible to use."

So this could cover a multitude of possibilities including, for example, entering the ground with the wrong age category ticket. It will be very "interesting" to see how this new law is used.

 

As I understand it the stadium is a private property. The Police will not routinely patrol the inside of a stadium. The Police actually charge clubs if they want a Police presence inside a football ground. They would have to be invited in. As any offence will actually occur on private property, the Police are likely to have to receive a complaint, from an authorised person. I anticipate that it would be stewards who would be involved. The club could eject people, or invite the Police to investigate the situation. It strikes me that it will be complicated in many cases. Clubs would have to introduce some form of biometric scanner at each turnstile. Think of passport control! If you ‘pass on’ a ticket, and it is not used a second time, then there will be no overt activity to attract the police. In essence how would the club and/or the police know if the person using the ticket, actually purchased it. There are many ‘reselling platforms’ who market unwanted tickets.

 

I am not lawyer, but it seems to me that there are two key elements to committing an offence under this piece of legislation:
1) the offence has to be committed at the time of entry (or attempted entry); and
2) the person entering (or attempting to enter) the match does not have an eligible ticket.

Both elements have to be met to comit an offence under this Act.

So, here is a scenario where tailgating may not fall foul of the new Act:

Bill and Ben want to attend the Wanderers v Athletic match, but they only have managed to get one eTicket between them. On the day of the match Bill holds a valid eTicket, but successfully tailgates into the stadium. A short while later Ben enters the stadium by successfully scanning a second printout of the same eTicket.

So, has an offence been committed under the new Act and, if so, was it Bill or was it Ben?