Ed Sheeran fans condemn online touts as tour tickets on offer at inflated prices

Disappointed fans vented their disgust at touts on Twitter after failing to get hold of tickets to his 14-date Ireland and UK tour which were released on general sale on Thursday morning.

Joss Woodend posted a screengrab of tickets being resold at up to £550 per ticket, and said: "This is why it is impossible to get @edsheeran tickets."

She added: "The industry is a mess - sort ticket touts out."

Several fans also called on Sheeran and his record label to intervene. Blair Millar wrote to the popstar: "hi Ed, deeply disappointed in not getting tickets for daughter for Glasgow, tickets touts win again."

Oliver Kennedy posted: "Ed Sheeran's record label to clampdown on ticket touts cashing in on singer's latest UK tour @edsheeran that's a lie couldn't get any at FV."

On secondary ticketing site StubHub, four tickets to his gig at The O2 Arena in London on May 1, originally priced at £77 were being offered at £999 each plus booking fees.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for eBay confirmed tickets had been removed from the auction website.

They said: "Tickets for gigs are not allowed on eBay and any listings will be removed."

The singer-songwriter has teamed up with face value ticket platform Twickets for his April and May concerts, but the site doesn't cover the Republic of Ireland.

Writing on his official tour website, Sheeran said: "Hey...for this tour I've teamed up with a company called Twickets - which is a safe, sensible and fair place for people to sell or buy any spare tickets they have for the shows.

"Via Twickets, everything is at face value (or less), so you're protected against fraud and hideous overpricing."

He added: "I'd ask all of you to use them and no other of these so-called 'secondary sellers' - no matter how legit they look, this is by far the best option."

A similar furore last month, over U2 tickets, prompted fresh calls for anti-touting legislation in Ireland.

Fine Gael Dublin North West TD Noel Rock said he was hopeful that an anti-touting bill he has previously proposed would be debated soon.

“In effect, I’m proposing for an end to above face value ticket reselling,” Mr Rock told the Irish Examiner.

“Most sporting organisations explicitly favour this already. It’s quite clear that this is happening in a far more frequent and formalised way than ever before, and the public are rightly annoyed by it.

“In Belgium, anti-touting laws were enacted and — following that — the Ticketmaster-owned reselling site Seatwave closed down. We can and should replicate that here.”