Yes it is illegal to resell football tickets.
It's not illegal to resell concert tickets though.
Indeed. Section 166 of the Criminal Justice Act. Strictly speaking if you meet someone at Shankly Statue to exchange a spare that costs £53 and they give you exactly £53 you have committed an offence.
In practice, this law is not really enforced apart from against people walking around and openly offering tickets at inflated prices. Indeed that is what the law is protecting against.
Occasionally you will get some sad pathetic utter fuckin loser who was clearly bullied at school and probably watches child porn in their spare time who wants to throw their weight around because they have nothing going for them in life. A case in point is the utter fuckin prick of a Cleveland police officer I had the misfortune to encounter at Middlesbrough away years ago. I gave my mate his ticket outside and he went to give me the cash (the face value, not £1 over) and this jumped up bellend comes over saying 'that's illegal, you can't do that'. I explained that I bought mine and my friend's ticket on my debit card so it was effectively just money owed, but this fuckin prick decided I couldn't do that. So I had to give my mate the ticket 'for free' and get the cash off him later. In hindsight I should have took the number off his shoulder badge and named and shamed the jobsworth wanker. Although this was just before facebook and other social media started to take off.