Since sport became a spectator event, tickets to the biggest games have always been hot property. And when they’re valuable items, there’s always a chance that someone will see an opportunity to make some money by selling it on for higher than face value.

Ticket touts have been a headache for clubs, organisations and event organisers for years, and that’s not something that’s likely to change. Especially when there are some events that just seem unmissable. Champions League finals come around every year, Olympic games every four years, and then every so often there’s an event like the Conor McGregor Floyd Mayweather fight that seems like a one-off, and as a result, even watching it in your living room is expensive.

Recently, there have been moves to try and stamp touting out, especially amongst Premier League football clubs. And this week, Crystal Palace have teamed up with Twickets, an app set up especially to allow users to buy and sell tickets to events at face value or less. Palace are the first Premier League club to partner with the app, but Championship outfit Queens Park Rangers have already started partnering with the service.

For Palace fans, that’s good news for season-ticket holders as the agreement allows fans who can’t make it to the game on a particular weekend to use the app to sell their ticket to someone else for face value.

But it’s also a positive step for Palace, who will presumably see fewer of their tickets appearing on sites which allow sellers to sell for an inflated value, and their fans will have more flexibility when buying tickets. There’s a special sort of security in knowing that the person you’re buying the ticket from is a fellow fan who simply can’t make it to the game and is recouping a loss on the ticket price, rather than someone who is looking to make a quick profit.

Steve Parish so enamoured by Twickets he's become an investor, according to press release pic.twitter.com/SaI2DizEnd

— Ed Malyon (@eaamalyon) August 24, 2017

Indeed, Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace chairman seems to be so much of a fan of the platform that he’s invested in the company itself in another seal of approval for the platform’s credibility when it comes to making sure tickets aren’t sold to touts who will sell for an even greater value.