How much would you pay to see your side play in a Rugby World Cup final? © onEdition

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The Crooked Feed: Solving the ticket tout conundrum

£715 for a World Cup final ticket in 2015. Don't say you weren't warned. Debbie Jevans, ER2015 chief executive, must think we were born yesterday - and have made bundles of money overnight.

Announcing this news two days before the first Lions Test looks like a cynical attempt to bury bad news. The assurance that tickets will still be available for £7 is utterly irrelevant, except probably to a handful of children in Milton Keynes, where the least attractive pool match will be played.

Regardless of Ms Jevans claim that she is "passionate about having those lower prices" that will apparently be subsidised by eye-watering prices for the final and other major matches, the situation has arisen from a string of cock-ups.

1. ER2015 agreed to an absurd £80 million ticketing guarantee to the IRB at the outset. No other potential host nation could come close to that figure.

2. The £80 million was agreed on the basis of selling around three million tickets, at a time when there was no arrangement to stage matches in venues big enough to accommodate such numbers. Assumptions must have been made on the availability of Wembley and Old Trafford, which were incorrect.

3. Consequently, when the venues were announced on May 2, 2013, the number of tickets had reduced to 2.6 million. Now, without explanation, it has dropped to 2.3 million. What has happened to 300,000 tickets?

4. Without being bailed out by Cardiff's willingness to host eight matches outside England, the situation would be considerably worse.

With ticket prices so astronomic, it is essential that a system of exchanging them legally during the knock-out stages of the tournament is put in place. There is no mention of such a scheme. Working from the Olympic ticketing model simply won't suffice for a knock-out tournament. All the talk of eliminating touts will come to nothing if fans are stuck with the wrong tickets for quarter-finals and semi-finals, as is bound to happen with pool results unknown.

Anyone stuck with a £715 ticket for a final that his team doesn't reach should be excused for wanting to sell it. In Sydney, after the semi-finals in 2003, the streets were awash with New Zealanders offloading final tickets, all gratefully taken up by English and Australians. Technically, that wasn't allowed, but a World Cup final watched by corporates and disinterested neutrals would be scandalous.