KEY POINTS:
All Blacks fans in the UK are calling for the New Zealand Rugby Union to come clean about where extra money charged for game tickets is going.
Kiwi Carl Hubbers, who has lived in the UK for the past 10 years, is among "the many" fans overseas who
he says are upset about the extra money they are being charged to see an All Blacks match in Europe.
The problem is not the extra charges, but understanding who is profiting from it, he says.
"Four of us bought [12] tickets to the Irish test in Dublin. We paid 922 for them. But the face value for those tickets was around 632. That's a mark-up of 46 per cent - where's it going?"
Mr Hubbers purchased the tickets from Sports Tickets International Ltd (STIL), which is the official match ticketing agency associated with the NZRU. He said several attempts to question STIL and the NZRU had led to him being threatened that his name would be cancelled from company databases, preventing him from buying tickets to All Blacks matches.
"There's no openness and when you inquire about it you're threatened. I've been here for 10 years, but we all still go out to the All Blacks' games, the cricket and support the Kiwis - we wear black and are exactly the type of fans you see on TV.
"No one begrudges the money. [But] it's about treating fans with respect and being open with where the money's going."
Margaret Faisandier from STIL, said the extra money charged to customers went to costs within the company that included website maintenance, administration and distribution fees.
"What we offer is a service. We cannot do it for nothing. We have two dedicated staff, website fees, administration fees, credit card fees for those going over there and distributing fees. The rest of it goes to NZRU," she said.
Ms Faisandier said she could not say what percentage of the money went to the rugby union.
Mr Hubbers, who has posted a blog about the mark-up of the tickets on his website, outlines the amount of money he estimates STIL is making from match tickets sold overseas.
"If we assume that our tickets are the average price, then STIL is making roughly 25 per ticket...If they have 5000 tickets per game to sell, then they have 25,000 tickets, which means that they will take 625,000 [$1,744,000]".
NZRU commercial manager Paul Dalton said he could not say what percentage of the money gained by STIL came back to the rugby union.
Mr Hubbers said he would be happy knowing that the money was going towards benefiting the future of Kiwi rugby: "If it goes towards rugby posts for little kids or something then good, because it's going towards the future of New Zealand rugby."
