For football fans who travel to Russia for the World Cup starting this June, heartache may not just come because their teams have lost; they may not have managed to get in to see the match because their tickets are invalid.

FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, is currently issuing tickets and insists it is the only authorized seller. Considerable measures have been taken to stop fraud. Each ticket has a hologram as well as a barcode and is personalized. Moreover, everyone holding a ticket must have a FAN ID issued by the Russian authorities. It is also a requirement in Russia that visitors must carry their passports.

This will pose a challenge for fraudsters outside Russia since, while they may be able to duplicate the FIFA ticket, they are likely to have difficulty copying the Russian FAN ID. And for Russian counterfeiters, the crime is going to be hardly less difficult, though it can be expected that organized gangs, with their alleged links to the authorities, will be doing their best to circumvent the security measures.

Of course, the real money for ticket touts is always in the secondary market. There are already reports from the UK that tickets for the England-Tunisia game have been changing hands at some four times the face value. However, given personalization and the double level of security which will match the names on the ticket and the FAN ID, and if necessary with an individual’s passport, it is hard to see how a secondary market can work at all. And for fans that carry false tickets and FAN IDs matching their travel documents, the prospect is not simply being turned away at the entrance to the stadium but also being hustled into a waiting police bus on a charge of fraud and deception.

It is completely understandable that FIFA should seek to ensure that genuine fans have access to games at a reasonable cost. Tickets have been priced to allow FIFA to gain a proper return in addition to the broadcasting rights it has sold around the world. Although the governing body of the Beautiful Game has been seriously tarnished by scandal and still does not apparently stint its executives in their international travel, the fact remains that the organization still does a lot to promote the sport, not least in developing countries.

The argument of the ticket touts has always been that there ought to be a free market and that selling on tickets to fans that do not have them is perfectly legitimate. This does, however, raise the question of why anyone intent on going to Russia to watch any of the World Cup games should not have already bought their seats in the proper manner. Who, it may be wondered, is so foolish as to wait until it is too late to purchase their tickets in the prescribed manner? And given the extra FAN ID measure on which the Russian authorities have insisted, apparently on the grounds of security, the sheer idiocy of buying a real ticket which has another person’s name on it is quite clear.

Surely no one in their right mind is going to go to the expense of paying for travel to and accommodation in Russia without being certain that they will be allowed in to watch a match?