Express & Star

Wolves fans who sold seats on black market banned from Molineux or getting tickets

Almost 100 Wolves fans have been stripped of their ticket scheme membership for selling seats on the black market and three given banning orders for bad behaviour.

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Molineux Stadium home of Wolverhampton Wanderers

Details of how the club was handling a raft of breaches including match day incidents, abuse, crime and anti-social behaviour have been unveiled for the first time in a new report as part of efforts to improve transparency and diversity.

It stated that up to April 1, a total of 93 fans had their memberships revoked for ticket touting, while 57 sanctions were issued ranging from 29 written warnings to three indefinite stadium bans. The club said if these, seven cases were being investigated by police.

Of the 57 incidents which range from Level one breaches including smoking, persistent standing or drinking alcohol in view of the pitch to Level five breaches including throwing a missile onto the pitch or physical assault, 44 took place at Molineux and 13 at away matches.

Among the issues were four acts of physical violence, two pitch incursions, three race hate crimes, seven relating to smoking, and five relating to foul or obscene language.

Wolves' equality manager Gurpri Bains said: “It is important for our fans to know how seriously we take acts of anti-social, hateful and discriminatory behaviour, which is why we have taken the unprecedented step of publishing this season’s figures.

"As part of our Not In Our Pack campaign, we are committed to making Molineux a home which our fans love, where they feel welcome and where we can be One Pack, and with that comes a responsibility to take action on the small minority who don’t share these values.

“It is important that we put these numbers into context – they represent less than 0.01 per cent of our registered supporters and the vast majority of supporters share and practice the standards of behaviour that we expect at Molineux and when we travel away from home.

“We ask all supporters to continue to be considerate of others, as even outside of these reported numbers there may be other unreported issues that can directly or indirectly impact on the enjoyment of the game for others, this can lead to some supporters feeling threatened or unsafe.

“We commit to continue being transparent in this area and reporting these numbers on an annual basis moving forwards, and over time we hope that we can see a steady decline in fan sanctions needing to be issued, we encourage all supporters home and away to tell us immediately when something doesn’t feel right.”

The move is part of a football authorities push for new tougher measures to tackle anti-social and criminal behaviour and is in support of the Premier League stewards' campaign Love Football - Protect The Game.