The RFU are investigating how a ticket intended for England’s Owen Farrell ended up being bought online by an Irish woman for more than 5 times its face value.
Rose Waldron from Tullamore paid £440 for a ticket with a face value cost of £70 on the website Viagogo, taking into account tax and reseller fees, and was shocked to discover that it had originally been allocated to 22-year-old fly-half Farrell.
“I’d tried every other avenue and at 10pm on Friday night I decided to buy a ticket online,” she told the Irish Independent.
“What a surprise when I received my ticket to find it was allocated to Owen Farrell of the England rugby team.”
It is understood that Farrell’s ticket was intended for a friend of a relative and that he did not personally gain from its sale.
An English Rugby Football Union spokesperson said: “We are looking into the circumstances around how this ticket came to be available on a secondary ticketing site, something we take extremely seriously.”
Waldron says that any unwanted player tickets should be returned to supporters’ clubs to eliminate any chance of them ending up on the black market.
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