Tickets were being offered at up to 44 times their face value hours before the official ticketing launch had even begun on Friday (September 12).

Although a "disappointment", Gilpin explained that there was "a degree of inevitability" that such activity would take place during one of the biggest sporting events on the international calendar and emphasised that organisers are prepared to tackle the issue head on.

"I think it's fair to say as well that there is a degree of inevitability about that issue," he told reporters today at The Lensbury hotel in London.

"The Rugby World Cup is a big event and there are a limited amount of tickets for the very high demand matches.

"Disappointed yes, prepared for it, also yes."

Gilpin was also quick to highlight the fact that tickets do not actually physically exist yet, meaning organisers have time to deal with the issue and also educate their customer base about buying tickets from official websites.

"At this point the secondary ticket selling sites are speculating at getting access to those tickets," he said.

"Those tickets don't exist yet; they can't possibly have those tickets.

"So there's a part of that which is about us educating our supporter base about buying from an official site."

Alan Gilpin is confident that Rugby World Cup organisers are prepared to deal with secondary tickets sales which have seen prices rocket to up to 44 times their face value on some websites ©Getty Images


On steps taken to tackle the issue, Gilpin added that Rugby World Cup Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the International Rugby Board (IRB) established for the purpose of tournament delivery, and England 2015 are working with the police, Trading Standards and others to "make sure that we minimise the amount of activity that put the consumers in the position to buy the wrong things from the wrong sources".

"Whether that's tickets, whether that's hospitality or travel packages or whether that's merchandise, you want to make sure that people understand to go to the official source to buy them."

Brett Gosper, chief executive of the IRB, who was also here at The Lensbury, added that the delay from purchasing tickets and them being actually delivered also gives organisers the chance to clamp down on any illegal activity.

"There's quite a delay from when the tickets are ordered to the dispatching about nine months on from the peak selling period, so there's the ability to manage issues as we go forward," said Gosper.

"What seems spectacular now, I think our ability to manage and control the activity is actually quite strong."

Rugby World Cup Limited and England 2015 both had conversations with the Government in an effort to bring in legislation that could make black market ticket activity more difficult, however, no such legislation was brought in due to issues surrounding free trade.

"We're disappointed that we didn't get the legislation that we'd liked to have had at the time but at the same time there are a lot of things in place to help the monitoring of that activity and to ensure people that through education, education, education they will go through the official sites and buy from official sites," explained Gosper.

Legislation of this kind was procured ahead of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in order to fight secondary ticket resales, although this was given as special discretion by the British Government.

To buy tickets for the Rugby World Cup, click here.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
September 2014: Largest-ever scrum marks start of ticket sales for Rugby World Cup
September 2014: Almost one million 2015 Rugby World Cup tickets on sale tomorrow
September 2014: England Rugby 2015 launch publicity drive ahead of World Cup tickets release
January 2014: Rugby World Cup 2015 launches official supporter tour packages
November 2013: England 2015 reveal 2.3 million tickets will go on sale next year for Rugby World Cup