Chelsea fans condemn ‘unethical’ ticket resale site – which club chairman invests in

Published

3 months ago

April 21, 2025

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Premier League match tickets at Chelsea have been selling for more than twice the price of a season ticket on an American exchange website with a familiar director and investor to supporters – club chairman Todd Boehly.

Amid growing fan fury, Sky News was able to access the Vivid Seats platform on different devices last week from London – and saw tickets for the visit of Liverpool on 4 May, priced by Chelsea at a maximum of £80, being sold for between £537 and £2,666.

Some tickets were listed as being sold by traders.

Chelsea’s official website appeared to show no availability for this premium fixture, with the Blues battling for Champions League qualification and Liverpool potentially celebrating being crowned Premier League winners.

The most expensive Stamford Bridge season ticket for this campaign was £1,015.

Vivid is listed by the Premier League among “unauthorised ticket websites” with a message: “We would urge fans to exercise extreme caution when dealing with these websites.”

The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust has written to the Premier League to ask that Vivid – given its ties with a club’s shareholder – “ceases facilitating the sale of tickets for significantly above face value”.

Mr Boehly – part of the consortium that replaced Roman Abramovich as owner in 2022 – has not addressed accusations of a “conflict of interest” or claims he is undermining efforts to combat ticket touting.

There are anti-touting warnings on signs in the streets approaching the stadium.

An official Chelsea Ticket Exchange allows season ticket holders to sell their tickets “at the pro-rata price of season tickets” to a club member “in a safe, secure environment”.

While Chelsea’s website says to only buy tickets in the UK from official sellers, it adds: “Many of the websites that advertise and sell tickets online are not within the jurisdiction of UK law.

“This means, while we report these sites when we see Chelsea tickets on them, there is little we can do to shut down the sites.”

On Vivid, we did see warnings telling visiting users not to buy seats in the home sections and a pop-up eventually appeared after browsing the availability, saying: “Tickets for the EPL matches are not currently available for purchase in your location.”

No attempt was made by us to buy tickets. But should we have been able to see the listings at all?

Sky News first asked for comment from Vivid last Monday and continued to see ticket listings with variable prices in pounds during the week. It took until Friday night for any form of response.

“Vivid Seats respectfully adheres to the laws that are in place in the United Kingdom and is not in violation of any regulations around EPL tickets,” the email read in part. “As such, Vivid Seats’ policy restricts the sale and marketing of EPL tickets in the United Kingdom.”

When Sky News checked the website again on Saturday the listings for Premier League matches were no longer visible as they are from outside of Britain.

Asked if they were no longer visible after our inquiries, Vivid’s official replied: “The conclusions that you are drawing are factually incorrect.

“We understand that people will try to find ways to circumvent technology and as such, we have validation protocols in place in order to restrict the sale and marketing of EPL tickets in the United Kingdom.”

Again, Vivid insisted it adheres to laws and regulations in Britain.

But the same official did not respond to an email detailing how we were able to view the tickets listings from London on separate days, without using VPN software that can make your browser seem as if it’s accessing the internet from another country.

‘It’s the only way I was going to get here’

Ticket exchange websites can be the only way for some fans overseas to come to matches.

When Ipswich played at Stamford Bridge on 13 April, Baz Gillespie was able to watch after 20 years living in Cyprus by paying a vastly-inflated £300 for two tickets on a website other than Vivid.

“The only way I was going to get here was that way,” he said, remembering the days he could just queue up and pay a fiver for a ticket.

The same match was Martin van Dijk’s first-ever game at the Bridge, having come from the Netherlands after paying €150 (£128) on another exchange website after initially trying through Vivid.

“If there’s no other option, and you want to visit, it’s the only way, but I’d rather get it through like the normal way,” he said.

‘An absolute disgrace’

It is the “normal way” that so many supporters want to protect and are aghast at Mr Boehly’s links to Vivid, predating his purchase of a stake in Chelsea.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” supporter Ben Grey said. “He shouldn’t be involved in Chelsea and a reselling website. It’s unethical from a basic perspective.

“The club are coming out with communication saying that they’re against ticket reselling and our semi-majority shareholder [has a website] reselling tickets to our games.”

Asked what the Premier League should do, he replied: “I’m a massive Chelsea fan, I don’t want Chelsea to be hit hard by anything.

“But the fact of the matter is they need to sort that out and if they’re allowing there to be an owner of a club who’s reselling tickets, it’s a disgrace.”

‘Not a very good look’

Another fan, Rich Still, called it “21st century greed”.

The issue is resonating with young children.

Rhys Edwards, watching with his father, said: “It doesn’t look too good on Chelsea and their owners to be fair.

“Saying that [the website] is not authorised by the league they’re playing in isn’t a very good look.”

Officials with Chelsea, the Premier League and Mr Boehly declined to comment.

The Vivid statement to Sky News stressed: “It is important to note that Vivid Seats does not set the base price for tickets sold on its marketplace or receive any revenue from that base price; only the seller sets and receives the base ticket price.”

‘It’s like the Wild West’

Vivid highlighted to Sky News its “long-standing partnership”, including being a backer of a 2023 summer tour of the United States.

Chelsea’s website featured a quote saying: “We are pleased to join with a company committed to becoming the ultimate partner for connecting fans to the live events, teams and artists they love.”

The government has launched a consultation to prevent people from being ripped off in Britain by the resale of tickets.

The limit could range from the cost of the original ticket to a 30% uplift to stop the public being “fleeced” by professional touts.

Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Rupa Huq, has separately proposed a change to the law to improve pricing transparency on secondary ticketing sites.

“It’s an unregulated market,” she told Sky News. “It’s like the Wild West. It needs getting back into control.”

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

8 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

11 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

13 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.