English rugby won a legal victory on Wednesday to support its efforts to prevent the resale of tickets for international matches online at inflated prices.
The Supreme Court in London dismissed an appeal by secondary ticketing Web site Viagogo against an order forcing it to identify people who had used its Web site to sell on tickets for autumn internationals in 2010 and Six Nations games last year.
However, Viagogo struck a defiant note, saying it would continue to offer tickets for England matches, including this weekend’s game against South Africa at Twickenham.
A number of soccer clubs and tennis event organizers have signed partnerships with Viagogo and rival StubHub, owned by EBay, to allow fans to sell unwanted tickets online.
However, the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) argues that the practice risks pricing out ordinary fans.
“Selling tickets through secondary ticketing sites is against our terms and conditions and allows prices to be inflated, preventing many of our supporters from purchasing,” RFU chief commercial officer Sophie Goldschmidt said. “We now plan to identify such sellers and take tough sanctions to keep our tickets off secondary ticket sites and in the right hands.”
The RFU can reduce allocations to member clubs if they sell tickets online, “name and shame” offenders or ultimately try to recover their profits through court action.
The battle between the RFU and Viagogo is likely to intensify in the run-up to the 2015 World Cup, which England will host.
Tickets for England’s game with South Africa were on offer for prices of between ￡125 and ￡200 (US$199 and US$319) on Viagogo’s Web site after the ruling.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
RSS