Chelsea Supporters’ Trust have come out to blast Todd Boehly’s financial ties to a ticketing platform selling match tickets at highly inflated prices. The fan group recently had its say via a press statement, and fans have been reacting.
According to its spokesman, Vivid Seats currently lists hundreds of Chelsea FC General Admission tickets at significantly inflated prices, and Boehly’s connection with the platform represents a breach of trust and could be a conflict of interest.
He added that no Chelsea fan believes it is appropriate for the club’s tickets or any other EPL tickets to be listed on the Vivid Seats website.
It read, “Vivid Seats currently lists hundreds of Chelsea FC General Admission tickets at significantly inflated prices. As these tickets are not sold by the Chelsea FC website, they are considered by the club to be ‘illegal sales’. Within the recent CST ticket touting survey, many CST members suggested that Mr Boehly’s connection with Vivid Seats is a ‘breach of trust’ and could be a conflict of interest.
These recent reports are very disappointing, and it is within Mr Boehly’s best interests to investigate these issues and address supporters’ concerns — we do not believe it is appropriate for any Chelsea tickets or wider Premier League tickets to be listed on the Vivid Seats website.”
Vivid Seats added, “As a global business, we are always respectful and cognisant of local regulatory policies and procedures that are in place in any market to ensure we are compliant.
As such, our policy restricts the sale of EPL [English Premier League] tickets from UK sellers. We can confirm that we do not have any UK sellers listing EPL inventory on our marketplace. Additionally, Vivid Seats does not and has never directly marketed or advertised Premier League tickets to UK customers. Regarding pricing, 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.”
WOW.
Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge.
The club competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. They won their first major honour, the League championship, in 1955. The club won the FA Cup for the first time in 1970, their first European honour, the Cup Winners’ Cup, in 1971, and became the third English club to win the Club World Cup in 2022.
On 7 May 2022, Chelsea confirmed that terms have been agreed for a new ownership group, led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss, to acquire the club. The group was later known as BlueCo.
The UK government approved the £4.25bn takeover, ending Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of the club. Bruce Buck, who served as chairman since 2003, was replaced by Boehly, while long-serving club director and de facto sporting director Marina Granovskaia left, as did Petr Čech from the role of technical and performance advisor.
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