Outside Highbury last Saturday, I was interested to witness how touts will get around the ticketless entry system at the new stadium next season. For those unaware, your membership cards will gain you entry to the stadium. If you are a season ticket holder, then entrance is possible every game. If you are a silver or red member, your card will be authorised dependent upon whether you have paid for a ticket for the relevant fixture. The location of your seat will given to you by letter or email for each match you are successful in applying for.

So, no tickets for the touts to sell, right? Well, yes and no. These guys are always asking for spares and I saw a season ticket holder with a spare book talk to a tout before the aforementioned Charlton match. The tout gave him the cash for use of the season ticket book, and then basically walked around with him (the seller was obviously not going to let the book out of his hands and wanted to go in with the buyer). Now I assume this seller was a bit naïve as the tout said to him that the admittance was actually for the use of his cousin and said they had to find him. I’d assume that word went out that this guy had a season ticket and a buyer had to be found. So doubtless round the corner someone was sold the ‘ticket’ by tout B, became the tout A’s cousin for the sake of the transaction and having paid tout B considerably more than tout A paid for the use of the season ticket for that game, the guy with the season ticket was paired up with the buyer by the middlemen and both went in through the turnstiles.

So next season, expect the same tactic to be used on those with spare but valid membership cards. However, this got me thinking, seeing the original seller being herded around like a sheep by tout A awaiting the arrival of his ‘cousin’. At present, I don’t doubt that many touts hold a variety of memberships, and obtain tickets in the first instance legitimately. So next season, with this shepherding idea to the fore, let’s say that a tout has 10 memberships. Now I don’t know if a membership card will allow admittance to the stadium through any and all of the sets of electronic turnstiles, but if not, then let’s say the 10 membership tickets will all be bought in the same block. So the tout basically finds buyers for 9 of his seats and once he’s got them all together at a pre-arranged time and place, he shepherds them in through the turnstiles with his cards, collecting them on the other side. Of course this means he has to waste one membership, but for the profit on the other 9 tickets it’s probably worth it. Depending on how the stewarding is handled, it may even be possible for him to have a steward on the inside collecting the cards and thus not need to waste one of his memberships. Once the ticket buyer has got through the turnstiles, the print out of their seat location will be enough for them to be shown to their seat.

So although ticket touting will be a little more difficult, it will not be impossible by any means. The touts will adapt and survive, and continue to be a blight on Arsenal matchdays.