Touts are reselling tickets for the Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua super-bout for up to five times their face value, angering boxing fans. Upper-tier passes at Cardiff's Principality Stadium, originally sold from £88.50, are now listed for as much as £491, while other standard tickets are being offered for thousands of pounds. Ringside seats have appeared for a staggering £73,000, thought to be £60,000 more than the original price.
Tickets sell out within an hour
All tickets for the all-British fight sold out in less than an hour on Friday, after more than 500,000 people joined the online queue minutes after the sale opened. The official sale on Ticketmaster saw regular tickets priced from £88.50 to £13,128, including fees.
Touts are now offering passes on platforms including Stubhub, Hello Tickets and ViaGogo, as well as on social media. One disgruntled fan said: "It's a disgrace. This is the biggest fight in decades for boxing fans and yet again we're being taken advantage of by scalpers. Something needs to be done about it. It's a liberty." There is no suggestion the resale sites, or sellers, are breaking any laws.
Fans vent frustration online
On X, @Tonypem said: "I’ve missed a trick here, I’ve just heard that the tickets for Fury Joshua which were £13k ringside are on resale for £75k each... should’ve bought a couple of em, that’s some return." @2pintWonder added: "This has to stop".
Ticketmaster bosses had already faced complaints from fans angry at being forced to buy coach tickets alongside their seats, after some passes were only available with return coach travel between Cardiff and major cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Fight details and background
The fight between former world champions 'AJ' and 'The Gypsy King' is described as the biggest match-up in British boxing history. It will take place in the early hours of the morning UK time on December 12 to cater for an international audience, with around 80,000 fans inside the stadium and millions more watching worldwide on Netflix.
The event was finally announced last month after years of speculation. Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh, who is financing the event, initially wanted it staged at New York's Madison Square Garden and reportedly accepted a loss of £50 million in revenue to stage the bout on British soil.
Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn has claimed his man had to sacrifice at least £10 million by pushing for the fight to be held in the UK, but according to reports the purse to be shared by the two fighters will still be around £150 million. Fury, who has won 36 professional fights, is reportedly worth £162 million. Opponent AJ, who has triumphed on 30 occasions, is said to enjoy an even greater fortune of £240 million.
The mark-up anger comes just weeks after tickets for the Oasis Live '27 tour began appearing on resale sites for as much as £2,433 each, as touts cashed in on desperate fans. England soccer fans heading to last summer's World Cup in North America faced huge mark-ups too.
