Thousands of England and Scotland World Cup tickets on resale at inflated prices

By

Football issues correspondent

England and Scotland fans hoping to get tickets for this summer's World Cup face paying vastly inflated prices through Fifa's official resale platform.

As of Tuesday, 6,135 tickets were listed by sellers across the six group games involving the two home nations on that particular platform.

Fifa is not currently selling tickets itself for these games as things stand, though it is not known if they are sold out.

It has not released any data on individual matches but has said more tickets could be released for games in the coming weeks.

This means that supporters are left with a choice between paying inflated prices or waiting and hoping that more tickets are officially released.

Fifa takes a 30% fee - 15% each off both buyer and seller - from each ticket which is sold.

The prices are set by the sellers, which can be anyone who was successful in one of the sales periods.

BBC Sport has taken a look at just how much fans are expected to pay to get into this summer's World Cup.

England's Group L matches are expected to be some of the most popular, with a huge ex-pat community across the United States.

Members of the England Supporters Travel Club who were not successful in the ballot are expected to travel to Dallas, Boston and New York in the hope they can secure a ticket.

If they want to do so right now, it will be very expensive.

In total, there were 3,198 tickets on resale for the Three Lions' fixtures.

For the opening game against Croatia, the cheapest ticket - with Fifa's fees added - costs $898 (£628). That is more than three times the category three face value of $265 (£201).

The biggest mark-up is shown in the category four tickets. Fifa only put a very small number of these on sale in the original October ballot, mostly priced at $60 (£45).

For Croatia, only two of these tickets are on resale priced at $1,955 (£1,486) and $2,300 (£1,748).

The asking price for many tickets across categories for the three games is as high as $17,250 (£13,110).

The other two group games are cheaper, but only just.

The best deal available for England fans is a category two ticket for the Ghana game in Boston. It is priced at $805 (£612) from a face value of $430 (£327).

The cheapest category one resale ticket is in this fixture, costing $1,208 (£918) from a face value of $600 (£456).

But there are category one tickets with a price as high as $29,900 (£22,724).

Prices for the final group game against Panama are of a similar level. The cheapest ticket is in category three and costs $920 (£699) from a face of $255 (£194).

Thomas Concannon, who leads the Football Supporters' Association's England fans' group, has told BBC Sport that many are holding on hoping that prices will drop as the matches draw closer.

"The only base we've got to go off really is the Club World Cup," Concannon said. "A lot of cheaper tickets became available, and certainly for the later rounds, in what you would consider the bigger games.

"That's all maybe what supporters would have to go off at the minute in the hope that the prices do come down, and what they can be able to obtain through that model."

Scotland supporters will be hoping that the prices for their games against Haiti and Morocco will come down.

But the final group game against Brazil is likely to be in high demand.

Like England, Scotland are expected to have a high number of travelling fans who will look to secure tickets late.

For now, the price of the 2,937 tickets listed is broadly in line with the England matches.

The cheapest resale ticket is for the first match against Haiti in Boston. A $400 (£304) ticket is listed for a total resale cost of $690 (£524).

Again, the category four tickets are hugely inflated. Only one is available, with an asking price of $2,875 ($2,185) from an original price of $70 (£53).

Morocco is slightly more expensive, with a category two ticket priced at $805 (£612) from a face value of $430 (£327).

The resale prices for the Brazil fixture in Miami are eye-watering.

The cheapest available is in category three and has an asking price of $1,150 (£874), when it cost just $310 (£236) at the ballot stage.

For category one, the lowest listed is at $2,253 (£1,713) from a face value of $700 (£532).

The price of one ticket goes as high as £143,750 (£109,250).

One game which might not see prices fall too much is the final, especially when you take into account the face value.

Of the 421 tickets on the resale site, many are priced at around $11,385 (£8,652) from a face value ranging from £2,030 (£1,542) up to $5,575 (£4,237).

The most expensive resale ticket for the final? That would cost $184,000 (£139,840) from a face value of $8,860 (£6,597).

The semi-finals also have very high prices but are roughly in line with each other on the cheapest available tickets.

In Atlanta the lowest priced ticket is $3,105 (£2,359) from a face value of $905 (£688).

With the original prices so expensive, the mark-up is much smaller on the higher categories.

A $2,525 (£1,919) category two ticket can be picked up for $3,335 (£2,534). In category one, you can pay $4,945 (£3,758) for a ticket which was bought for $3,040 (£2,310).

Fifa's resale platform reopened on Thursday.

Anyone who has bought a ticket can offer it for sale at any price they want.

Many of the prices appear to be unrealistic and are far more expensive than comparable tickets in the same block of a stand.

Then there are some tickets at what you could call wildly optimistic prices.

For instance, there is a category four ticket for Scotland v Brazil, which cost $60 (£45) listed at a cool $11.362m (£8.635m).

In the unlikely event that the ticket sold, Fifa would get commission of just under $3m (£2.28m).

Prof Mark James, who works in sports law at Manchester Metropolitan University, said Fifa could have capped prices with the tournament operating under New York State law.

"The state law simply says no unauthorised resales," James said. "Fifa could have placed a resale cap of face value.

"Or as it usually works, face value plus accompanying fees.

"Most tournaments are now trying to have some sort of official platform where the tickets can be bought and sold, or transferred or exchanged, or you can get a refund sometimes.

"But this is a huge number of games in big stadiums. There's not been anything of this scale in the past."