Leisure and sporting bodies are calling for legislation to make ticket touting illegal, following a summit where culture secretary Tessa Jowell called on ticket agencies to “squeeze ticket touts out of business and stop genuine fans being frozen out of the market”.

Nick Blackburn, managing director of See Tickets, the biggest UK-owned ticket agency, said he wants to see government legislation where touting becomes a criminal offence – as with the Olympic and Paralympic Games Act – and to ban secondary ticket agencies such as eBay reselling tickets.

An FA Premier League (FAPL) spokesperson said that the League supports this and has been lobbying the government with other sport, music and theatre bodies for the ticket touting legislation to be included in the Violent Crime Reduction Bill.

At the summit, headed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in late April, Jowell asked all those present – including the FAPL, eBay, the Society of London Theatre and Ticketmaster – to set up a list of principles to prevent touts exploiting the public.

The guidelines include limiting the number of tickets sold in one transaction, blacklisting known touts, establishing a more effective returns policy and banning the sale of ‘futures’ – tickets to an event that hasn’t been formally scheduled or that the seller does not yet own.

The principles are being tested by ticket agencies until the summit reconvenes in July, when a final voluntary code of conduct will be drawn up.

The FAPL spokesperson said that the testing has been going well and that he hopes changes in the law will be made “sooner rather than later”.

The DCMS said that, so far, eBay has agreed to stop selling futures and that it is not ruling out legislation.