Unsold Scotland World Cup tickets put on resale sites

Just over a week until Scotland's World Cup campaign begins, tickets for the opening match are being sold on third-party resale websites.

Dozens of tickets for the Scotland vs Haiti match on 12 June are listed on the sites, some are around face value while others have been inflated in price.

The Times newspaper reports that the football governing body Fifa is working with resale sites in an effort to sell thousands of unsold tickets, despite previously warning fans against them.

Fifa has been approached for comment.

Tickets for Scotland's opening match in Boston were originally sold for between £53 and £380 - some were resold on Fifa's resale site for more than $2,000.

Now, tickets are being sold on third-party sites, with one seen by the BBC being listed at less than £200.

Gavin Noon, who runs social media site Scotland co-efficient, told BBC Scotland tickets had been sold in an "absolutely shambolic way".

He told BBC's Radio Scotland Breakfast: "They've always had the message that the tournament is going to sell out, tickets are going to be so scarce you have to pay £1,200 if you want to come to every single match."

He said that for the games that were "less desirable", whole sections were now for sale on secondary resale ticketing sites "at less than a third of the face-value cost."

Fans from countries such as Scotland competitors Haiti will be unable to attend after being banned from entering the United States.

Noon added that Fifa had warned fans to avoid the sites, but then appeared to have turned to them after being left with "tens of thousands" of unsold tickets.

He explained that Fifa's own resale site charges buyers and sellers 15% on resold tickets and the football authority is unable to reduce the price of unsold tickets as it would upset people who had already bought them.

"They should've priced the games affordably, you would have fans that would've gone over to see their country then go to see anther country in the city they are in, how its always worked at other tournaments, but now people can only afford to go to the one match they've been paid to go for," he said.

Last week, the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey officially launched an investigation into Fifa's practices.

New Jersey attorney general Jennifer Davenport called the process a "gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity and impossibly high prices".

Scotland football fans will head stateside in their tens of thousands in the coming weeks.

Many are expected to travel despite not having tickets, instead choosing to watch games in fan zones being set up in host cities.

A whole host of fan zones have also been planned on home soil for those who are not making the journey.