Congratulations to Arsenal’s intelligence officers. They should be proud of themselves. Earlier today, they made sure the court gave me a ban from all football matches played in the UK and all Arsenal matches abroad lasting three years. I must also not come within 1500 metres of any designated football match four hours prior to a game and one hour afterwards.

So what have I done to warrant such a punishment? I sold one ticket, my dad’s ticket, for UNDER face value outside the Emirates. It was a Club Level ticket for the Arsenal v Roma game and my dad couldn’t make it, so I had a spare ticket. I was expecting my friend to have the ticket but he let me down. So I sold my ticket to a Roma fan for 100 euros. Fair enough, that was stupid. I shouldn’t have sold it to a Roma fan but the Club Level matchday policy states that it welcomes away supporters regardless, so I wasn’t breaking a rule there.

The face value of the ticket was £120. At the time I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was an offence to sell a ticket for under face value outside a football ground. I knew it was an offence to tout and sell a ticket for over the price on the ticket but not under. I am aware of this fact now and I realise I did wrong by selling a ticket - but I have apologised, accepted my fine and just wanted to move on and carry on supporting and following the team I love home and away. But I have now been denied this by an over-the-top ban.

I am 18, have never been in trouble with the police before, have no previous convictions, have been going to football with my dad for the last ten years, and yet I have been given a three year ban just for selling my dad’s ticket. I’ve been reading on the internet and in the papers over the last few weeks about other cases where football banning orders have been refused and yet mine has been granted.

A Newcastle fan ran on the pitch a few months ago to confront Sunderland players and yet escaped with a fine and NO football ban. Fans have been involved in countless small skirmishes with rival fans and yet escaped with no football ban. I was reading about one TICKET TOUT, which I am clearly not, being handed a banning order after he had sold nine tickets totalling £1,980 for a Liverpool v Barcelona game - and they were all FAKE. My case is clearly distinguishable from this.

Me and my dad have been sitting in Club Level since the E******s opened and a lot of people around us have complained about our whole back row being too loud and rowdy. We are a bit loud and a bit stupid at times but all we are doing is making noise and supporting our team. Yet it seems in Club Level this is not allowed. Every ten seconds we were being told to sit down and to keep the noise down. This is meant to be a football match! Stewards were coming up to us nearly every game saying how many complaints they’d had that day and we were even sent a couple of letters warning us about our behaviour. It seems certain important people in Club Level have wanted to get us out of the club which is why it has now come to this.

A couple of months ago during the Dynamo Kiev game at home, a couple of people around me that I knew were searched and got ejected from the ground for possession of drugs. They then searched me and whilst they found no drugs on me, they kicked me out of the ground for failing an “attitude test”. Again, this proved to me just how desperate they seemed to be get rid of our tickets. They were going to chuck me out that night regardless of whether they found anything or not, they were just looking for any excuse.

In fact, we have good reason to believe that there are even Arsenal intelligence or informers sitting among us in Club Level passing information back to the police, such has become their determination to get me and my dad out of the club. The police officer who arrested me later approached me down Holloway Road and said “What have you got on you now?” when I didn’t have anything on me in the first place! This officer is then the same one who arrested me undercover in plain clothes at the Roma game. He also approached me as I was going into the ground for the Arsenal v Hull quarter final, which I was allowed to go to as it was after I was given unconditional bail, and pulled me to the side to ask me whether I was meant to be there. I explained to him I was, he called up somebody and said, “Has he got his banning order yet?” I was allowed to go into the game eventually, but this bloke was clearly harassing me. OK he had arrested me for something I shouldn’t have done, but why couldn’t he leave it at that?

What makes the ban even more stupid is that when I first got arrested, I was given conditional bail at the police station meaning I couldn’t go within 1500 metres of any football match, basically the situation I am now. I had to miss the West Brom away game and Fulham and Burnley at home. After the first court hearing which was later adjourned as the Arsenal intelligence officers were in Rome, I was fined £66 and was given unconditional bail, meaning I could go to any game before the court case. I thought this showed at the time that this particular judge thought a football ban was too much. Since then, I have been to both Roma and Newcastle away without incident which should have proved that a football ban is not necessary and that I am not a football hooligan or ticket tout to whom these bans are supposed to apply.

I go to every Arsenal game, home and away, and having this privilege taken away from is like having my heart ripped out. I don’t go to games to cause trouble, I go to support my team as vocally as I can. I am a genuine football supporter and not a troublemaker so I don’t see why I deserve a ban from football just for the sale of one ticket. Maybe if I had previous convictions at football or for ticket touting then I could understand being handed a ban but not for a one-off incidence.

I am also studying sports journalism at university. With this ban, it’s going to be extremely hard for me to continue my studies and hopefully a career as a sports journalist over the next three years with this ban over my head. It states football bans are there to prevent violence and disorder at matches but I don’t see what I do to incite violence. At the end, the judge said “I am satisfied this ban will help prevent disorder in the future”. I hope there might be something the onlinegooner could do to help me with my appeal.

Ed’s note – only give you the oxygen of publicity. We should state that the above is published in good faith and we cannot verify what Jamie has said. There may be another side to the story, and if anyone who reads this feels it is not an accurate portrayal of the situation, we are happy to give them the right of reply on this website.

What we can confirm is that it is indeed a criminal offence to re-sell a ticket on the street at any value. The club unofficially do not frown on friends or family using a spare. But if the police spot cash being exchanged for a ticket in the vicinity of the stadium, you are liable to be arrested, regardless of the price you ask for the ticket or whether you know the recipient. My advice is to keep the physical handing over of the ticket and any cash involved entirely separate. So if you are giving your mate some cash for a ticket, it’s just money you owe them as far as the police are concerned. Take the ticket/card five minutes later. This way even a plain clothes officer should not have reason to suspect you.