Touts net huge profit on illegal cup final tickets

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The prices for the all-London clash between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur this month are believed to be the highest ever commanded for the "junior" domestic knock-out competition.

Websites are brazenly flouting new legislation which gave the football authorities and police powers to prosecute super-touts and the companies they run.

The match on Sunday 24 February will be the first Carling Cup final to be held at the new Wembley Stadium and involves two well-supported clubs, each with an allocation of just over 31,000 tickets.

A further 24,000 have gone to members of Club Wembley, who are entitled to seats, other football clubs and sponsors.

But many thousands of tickets have ended up in the hands of touts, who are charging huge mark-ups on face values ranging from £38 to £80.

Seats in the Spurs sections of the stadium are currently commanding the highest prices as Chelsea have not yet sold all their allocation.

For example, one website is advertising seats behind the goal at the Chelsea end for just £250, compared with £700 for equivalent seats at the opposite end.

The Premier League and the Football League, which runs the competition, said they were planning to prosecute five websites. But they said they had been frustrated because the Home Office had not yet published detailed legal guidance to go with the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, which banned online resale of football tickets.

The Act became law in April last year so the football authorities and police would be able start closing down websites in time for the current season.

However, no prosecutions have yet been launched and almost all the sites are based abroad, making it harder for the authorities to bring prosecutions.

Football League spokesman John Nagle said: "Re-selling match tickets is a criminal offence and where tickets are made available for purchase this year action will be taken."

But fans said they doubted that the highly lucrative practice would ever be stamped out.

Toby Brown, editor of Chelsea fans' online forum CFC.net, said: "For every site you close down five will spring up."