**Despite Chelsea fans’ concerns, Todd Boehly’s Vivid Seats company have likely “outsmarted” the Premier League in their battle relating to unauthorised ticket sales, says finance expert Kieran Maguire.**
Speaking exclusively to **_The Chelsea Chronicle_**, the University of Liverpool football finance lecturer called what Vivid Seats is doing an “obscenity”, as further details arise about the company’s sale of Chelsea tickets.
In the club’s accounts for 2023-24, Chelsea disclosed related-party payments between Vivid Seats and Chelsea to the sum of £93,000.
It later emerged that Vivid Seats were on the Premier League’s list of unauthorised ticket resellers and that Todd Boehly was a shareholder and director of the company.
Joe Cole is absolutely right.
Earlier this month, Boehly was cleared by the Premier League after an investigation into his links to the resale site was deemed not to have broken the rules.
However, the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust, as well as commentators such as Maguire, have expressed their disappointment with the Premier League’s rules, which they argue do not sufficiently address the issue of matchday tickets at Stamford Bridge and beyond being sold for well above face value.
As relayed by Maguire, tickets for Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final meeting with Leeds United at Wembley are listed on Vivid Seats to customers outside the UK at significant markups. Online football ticket touting – where independent resellers set prices via platforms like Vivid Seats – is banned in the UK itself.
Amid pitiful form on the pitch under Liam Rosenior and increasing scrutiny on BlueCo’s move-fast-break-things ownership model, the evolution of the Vivid Seats drama is an unwanted distraction.
Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP via Getty Images
Expanding on the latest information on the club’s relationship with the company and the Premier League process that found Boehly not to be in breach of its rules, Maguire told **_The Chelsea Chronicle_**: _“If you look at Chelsea’s 2023-24 accounts, Vivid Seats is explicitly stated as a related party. But in the latest set of accounts, there is no mention of Vivid Seats.”_
_“I’ve seen the prices that Vivid Seats are charging for World Cup tickets and it’s an obscenity, a stain on the game. It’s the same tactic that we’re seeing with the FA Cup and other Chelsea tickets, taken to new extremes._
_“One can only conclude that either Chelsea’s lawyers have outsmarted the Premier League or the Premier League simply has so much on its hands that it has decided that the values involved here are not significant enough to warrant a full process against Boehly.”_