Portugal versus Croatia, a pair of European heavyweights, featuring some of the biggest stars in the sport.

Given that there are large expat communities from both countries in the city, and the presence of famous football names like Luka Modric and Cristiano Ronaldo, and the fact that it’s a knockout match in the biggest sporting event in the world, demand for tickets is naturally high.

But given Doug Ford’s curiously anti-capitalist turn in the spring, when the premier adopted an NDP policy demand and banned the resale of event tickets in the province for any amount above the original cost, that must mean that interested buyers can find seats for around face value, right?

(Sound of crickets.)

Right?

(Door creaks on its hinges, tumbleweed blows by.)

Quite wrong, actually.

There were plenty of listings for Portugal-Croatia at Don’t-Call-It-BMO Stadium on various resale sites as of Tuesday evening, but none of them were for an amount even remotely close to face value. There were upper-section seats, face value of $375, listed for anywhere from $2,700 to $5,700 each on the reseller marketplace StubHub, and similar prices on SeatGeek, another resale site. Someone even has a pair listed for $4,898 apiece in the highest corner of the temporary north stand at the stadium, a price that is admirable for its ambition if nothing else.

Listed prices are, of course, not proof of actual sales, but the presence of so many listings at around that cost suggests transactions are being made. (The sites discourage sellers from listing their seats at an amount that is out of whack with market demand.)

This is, strictly speaking, illegal, given that the last Ontario budget bill included changes to the Ticket Sales Act that restricted resales to an amount equal to the original cost of a ticket, plus fees and taxes.

But breaking the law only matters if you get caught, and it would seem many people are willing to take their chances.

This is understandable, given that the provincial government would have to dedicate tremendous resources to track down anyone and everyone who sold a ticket above face value via a resale site. The whole point of those transactions is that they are frictionless and fast; buyer and seller rarely even need to communicate directly.

So far, Ontario’s response to the ongoing existence of above-face-value sales has been to wag its finger angrily and increase the amount of the potential fines that it says it could impose on repeat offenders. It has also this month added StubHub and SeatGeek to the province’s Consumer Beware List, which seems like the regulatory equivalent of making them sit on the naughty step for a moment but not much else.

(The resale sites have said they intend to comply with provincial law but have been seeking guidance on how to do so while still operating their businesses. They’ve said they have no way of knowing the original cost of any given ticket, since it is never in their hands.)

None of this should be surprising to the Ford government, since it repealed the provincial price cap on resale tickets in 2019, calling the measure unenforceable. (That cap, limited to 50 per cent above face value, had been put in place by the former Liberal government.)

The lesson of those sky-high prices for the World Cup game in Toronto is not that sellers are making off like thieves, but that there is huge demand for a once-in-a-lifetime event and that, like any ultra-luxury good, some people will pay a bonkers amount for it.

If it wasn’t through a regulated reseller, it would be on more unpredictable places like a classified marketplace. Someone has a pair of tickets to Portugal-Croatia listed for $4,500 on Kijiji; another listing says two to nine tickets are available in the lower bowl, with no price listed. “Please Contact,” it says. Sounds totally above board. One fellow, bless his heart, has listed a ticket for free. (The catch is that he is willing to attend the match with you, if you provide the ticket. I respect the hustle.)

The current law only exists because the Toronto Blue Jays got hot last season and enough people complained to the premier about the high cost of tickets.

But it was always bound to be unworkable. The World Cup, its first major test, is only proving that to be true.

sstinson@postmedia.com