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| Opening of the National Assembly Style Committee's Subcommittee on Examining the Sports and Tourism Act |
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The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Munseo Committee) has voted to amend the National Sports Promotion Act, which imposes strong sanctions of up to 50 times fines related to sports ticket sales.
On the 18th, the Culture and Sports Committee held a subcommittee to review the sports tourism bill and voted on a revision to the National Sports Promotion Act, which calls for fines for illegal sales of tickets to sports games. It has established a legal basis for prohibiting the illegal purchase and sale of admission tickets and imposing fines up to 50 times the sales amount in case of violations.
Before 2022, ticket trading was classified as a simple misdemeanor under the Misdemeanor Punishment Act enacted in 1973 and was sentenced to a fine of up to 200,000 won, detention, or fine. It was only possible to crack down on the act of reselling tickets for more money on the spot. The world has changed, but the law has failed to keep up. In the case of online transactions, it was pointed out that there was no basis for sanctions and the punishment was too insignificant. The revision of the Performance Act, Sports Promotion Act, and Sports Facility Act from 2023 to 2024 provided the basis for punishment for online ticket transactions, but the limitations were also clear. The article 'Banning the illegal sale of tickets using the macro program and violating it shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine of not more than 10 million won' was ineffective in the market. In reality, it is difficult to determine whether to use macro programs or not, and criticism has been poured out that it is too light a punishment of 'smooth' compared to the hundreds of millions of won in unfair profits and market disturbances taken by evil scalpers.
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| President Lee Jae-myung is presiding over a Cabinet meeting held at the Presidential Office in Yongsan on the 11th. |
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| Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young |
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Finally, at a Cabinet meeting on the 11th, President Lee Jae-myung directly mentioned ways to eradicate scalping tickets for performances and sports games. Shortly after receiving a report on the matter from Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young, President Lee proposed that `eliminate ineffective penal provisions and introduce strong penalty regulations.' "I am against strengthening punishment. There is no way that the court will sentence him to prison even if he/she is revised to 10 years or less in prison when he/she was caught selling tickets at the ballpark. It's a waste of time and manpower to investigate and judge for no reason. It's better to raise the penalty sharply." "It is said that Korea has three times more penal provisions than Germany. Ineffective penal provisions should be eliminated. Last time 'Chocolate Pie 1,000 won ' I was on trial too... What a waste of manpower. It's better to take this opportunity to just add a fine and remove the penalty clause." "If you hit the fines, it becomes government income, and there is no reason for the government to have them all. It would be nice to pay 10% of the penalty to the reporter or introduce a reward system. In addition, it is better to set the best penalty, such as up to 30 times the total amount of sales, and to exclude the punishment clause. Criminal punishment for selling scalpers is a bit inappropriate. Push ahead with the elimination of criminal punishment and a stronger penalty.' "The penalty is much more effective than the punishment," he added.
The online ticket issue was also a hot issue at the parliamentary inspection of the National Assembly's stylistic committee held at a time when the Korean Series between the LG Twins and the Hanwha Eagles was hot. Rep. Jeong Yeon-wook (Power of the People) said in a parliamentary audit on the 29th of last month that `The tickets for the first game of the Korean Series between LG and Hanwha exceeded KRW 1 million on the ticket site 'Ticket Bay' on the 26th, and the regular seats are also trading at KRW 490,000 to KRW 550,000 each day, breaking the record every dayIt was confirmed that tickets for Game 6 on November 2 were traded at a maximum of 9.99 million won. We are even mobilizing macros, but will we leave them unattended indefinitely?" he criticized with intensity.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwi-young said at the time, `We are cracking down on illegal reservations, but there are fundamental limitations. It's not easy to tell whether it's a macro or not. Basically, all acts of receiving extra money after securing tickets should be prohibited, but there is no basis for crackdown. There is no legislation to control online sales,' he said, urging the writers to enact legislation."A number of lawmakers are proposing amendments to the bill. If you pass it within this session, we will crack down thoroughly. We will crack down with all our might, so please make sure that the law is passed."
And in the revision of the National Sports Promotion Act, which passed the subcommittee on the bill of the Committee on Culture and Sports on November 18, the penalty was set very strongly at '50', far exceeding the 'maximum 30x' exemplified by President Lee Jae-myung.
Reporter Jeon Young-ji sky4us@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
