West Bromwich Albion fans told tickets still available for FA Cup semi final

Mar 28 2008 By Paul Bradley

BAGGIES fans being targeted by touts with £300 FA Cup Semi-Final tickets were today told "don't buy - there are still 5,000 seats left!"

A Black Country Mail investigation revealed this week how London ticket touts were charging up to £300 a seat for the game against Portsmouth on April 5 using classified advert websites.

But today officials from West Bromwich Albion confirmed there were still thousands of seats available to fans on their ticketing database Ð all priced at £25 or £15 for concessions through the official club hotline. A spokesman

for the club said: "It is really disappointing to hear ticket touts selling seats for up to £300 because the club has gone to great lengths to ensure our Wembley allocation goes to genuine supporters.

"We would strongly urge all supporters not to pay above face value for any Wembley ticket.

"In any case, as of 5pm last night, we still had 5,000 semi-final tickets left to sell so there is still opportunity for supporters to buy tickets through the official channel."

The news comes as the Gumtree website, which hosted illegal adverts posted by the scammers, revealed they were now putting in extra measures to stop touts slipping through the system and preying on fans desperate for tickets.

A spokesman for www.gumtree.co.uk said: "We are now bringing in new filters for the website after the Birmingham Mail exposed touts using our pages illegally to sell tickets.

"We do not condone this practice and we will be investigating further.

"It is obviously not good that these people are operating on our site and taking advantage of genuine football fans."

Tickets are available on the Ticketmaster hotline on 0844 847 2454 from 11am today.