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Istanbul prosecutors have launched a crackdown on black market football ticket sales, ordering the blocking of five websites accused of illegally reselling tickets for Turkish SuperLig matches.
The Istanbul Anadolu Chief Public Prosecutor's Office announced Wednesday that its Sports Crimes Investigation Bureau has initiated a formal investigation into unauthorized ticket sales and resale operations targeting Turkish football matches. Authorities have ordered internet service providers to block access to five websites under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, which governs internet publications and cybercrime in Türkiye.
The blocked websites include kombinedevret.com, varbilet.com, biletwise.com, ticketfoni.com and ticketbix.com. The prosecutor's office said the access ban was implemented to prevent interference with the ongoing investigation.
The Turkish action comes two months after a BBC investigation in September exposed an extensive black market for Premier League tickets in England, where reselling football tickets is also illegal. That investigation revealed overseas companies were using memberships and computer software to obtain thousands of tickets through clubs' online platforms, then reselling them at inflated prices.
The BBC found that nearly 33,000 tickets were listed across four unauthorized websites for just four Premier League matches, with prices ranging from £55 to nearly £15,000. Reporters successfully purchased and used tickets for matches at Manchester City, Arsenal, Everton and West Ham, all at two to four times face value.
Like the websites targeted in the BBC investigation, which operated from Spain, Dubai, Germany and Estonia, the Turkish sites appear to function as resale platforms connecting buyers and sellers. Biletwise.com, one of the blocked sites, markets itself as operating across the European Union.
The illegal ticket resale market has proven difficult to combat because many platforms register their operations in foreign jurisdictions beyond the reach of domestic law enforcement. In England, only 12 arrests for ticket touting were recorded across the top six tiers of football last season, despite Premier League clubs canceling hundreds of thousands of suspicious accounts and memberships.
Arsenal alone removed 30,000 suspicious entries from ticket ballots, while Chelsea blocked 350,000 bot purchases and Liverpool shut down 100,000 fake ticketing accounts, according to figures released by those clubs.
Turkish authorities indicated the investigation aims to ensure proper procedures are followed throughout the probe. The prosecutor's office announcement emphasized that the inquiry would continue to address all material aspects of the unauthorized ticket sales.
Ticket security experts who worked on the Premier League investigation described the secondary market as an "arms race," with sophisticated operations controlling thousands of memberships at individual clubs. One Premier League club identified more than 900 memberships under the control of a single director from a resale website.
Beyond pricing concerns, unauthorized ticket sales pose potential safety risks by undermining segregation rules designed to keep rival supporters separated at matches. The BBC investigation documented multiple instances where tickets placed fans in opposition supporters' sections, with some sellers providing explicit instructions not to speak with security personnel.
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