The rugby World Cup has been hit by a ticket scalping "scandal" that includes claims a pair of tickets to the final at Twickenham sold for nearly $50,000.
A UK MP, Chris Bryant, claimed that fans were being "ripped off left, right and centre" after his office made a detailed examination of prices for tickets in the so-called pool of death which features England, Wales, Australia and Fiji.
A Guardian report says that English rugby lobbied unsuccessfully for legislation to ban resale of tickets except through official channels, as occurred for the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. New Consumer legislation allows governing bodies to cancel tickets sold in breach of terms and conditions. Bryant said the maximum penalty of $12,000 was not enough to deter major scalping though.
He said a pair of tickets for the clash between England and Wales sold for $28,000, and the price reached $49,000 for the final.
Bryant said: "It is a scandal that the government is allowing fans to be charged 40 times the face value of a ticket with nothing going to the grassroots games, the players or the stadia. The money just goes into the pockets of parasitical rip-off merchants."
