Sir, – I note with great interest the report that UEFA president Michel Platini referred to those hiking their accommodation prices in the Ukraine as “bandits and swindlers” (Sport, April 13th). While I have no doubt that this may well be true in some cases as hoteliers attempt to seize their opportunity to cash-in on the increased levels of tourism, it is a most interesting comment coming from the UEFA president when his own organisation is doing likewise with the majority of ticket prices. The hoteliers may not profit in the end as, anecdotally at least, many English fans for example have been turned off overpaying for accommodation and the FA have therefore struggled to sell out their ticket allocation.
But UEFA itself has questions to answer on exorbitant prices. For starters, while there are three levels of ticket categories, the majority of tickets offered for stadiums in both the Ukraine and Poland were at the category 1 level at a basic cost of €120 per ticket despite a vast differences in the quality of views on offer within this category.
This has resulted in large swathes of tickets remaining available for games in the Ukraine as visiting fans fail to take up allocations and locals are badly priced out of the market. Add this to the fact that the UEFA resale portal (utilised by the governing body to re-sell unwanted tickets) has added the standard administrative fee plus an additional fee of 10 per cent to tickets re-sold. This is in addition to the fees charged to the original ticket-buyer plus the penalty of a less-than-full refund.
In what other market does the ultimate buyer of a product get penalised because the original owner no longer wanted a product? Bear in mind that the tickets were not physically sent to the original buyer. The only administrative task was to refund a portion of the original price and sell on the ticket to the new buyer.
UEFA may feel it is right to criticise and ultimately warn local Ukrainian businesses that price hikes will likely hurt every business as less people chose to travel. But perhaps they could bear their own advice in mind too. The irony is certainly not lost on football fans who recognise that it is somewhat of a self-serving exercise as UEFA will want to boast of sold-out stadiums and record attendances. – Yours, etc,