Rugby World Cup 2023: investigation opened on suspicion of illegal resale of tickets

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MASAKI FURUMAYA / YOMIURI / THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN VIA AFP 17:28 pm, September 08, 2023

An investigation was opened at the end of August on suspicions of illegal resale of tickets for the Rugby World Cup 2023 whose opening match takes place Friday night in Seine-Saint-Denis, said Friday the Paris prosecutor's office, requested by AFP. The brigade for the repression of economic crime (BRDE) has been seized, said the public prosecutor.

Tickets sold "1,000 euros"

These investigations follow a complaint filed on August 17 in Paris by the organizing committee of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, which accuses an individual of having "set up a structured system" of illicit resale of tickets, according to the complaint consulted by AFP. The public interest group (GIP) France 2023 markets all tickets giving access to the 48 matches of the World Cup, which begins Friday evening and runs until October 28. But on July 20, the GIP ticketing service noticed that a person was buying 150 seats "with different blue cards," the complaint said.

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The GIP accuses him of having then "set up a structured system" (via in particular a summary table of dates, unit price, payment by bank transfer or PayPal ...) in order to resell tickets with a significant margin: a place at 170 euros is thus offered for resale for "1,000 euros". In a civil judgment rendered on July 6 in another case of resale of tickets for the World Cup-2023, the Paris court had recalled that the monopoly of the GIP was aimed at "the protection against the increase in the cost of tickets resulting from their resale" and "the security of the event by the control of the identity of the spectators".