The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee has announced plans to counter ticket scalping ahead of the event, Reuters reported this week.
The committee is especially fearful of massive ticket buyouts and inflated resale for the 2020 games given the scalping ring that slowed ticket sales for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, which was uncovered by police at the games and involved several Olympic officials, including Ireland’s former Olympic chief Patrick Hickey.
To prevent a similar issue in Tokyo, organizers plan to introduce a system that would issue online tickets that bear personal information as well as allow purchasers to sell their tickets at a fixed price.
However, with more then 10 million tickets expected to be issued, the committee is calling on the Japanese government for backup. They hope lawmakers might pass official legislation that would further deter scalping activity.
“It will affect the Games’ reputation. We want to create a framework through which we can thoroughly crack down on people reselling tickets obviously for a profit,” an official of the organizing committee was quoted as saying by a Kyodo news agency.
