Following on from his headline performance at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday night, Ed Sheeran has announced a huge stadium tour for 2018 that will cover the UK and Europe.

The singer songwriter will stop by Manchester to play the Etihad Stadium on May 24 next year.

As of yet there are no details on ticket pricing but they will go on sale on July 8.

Demand will be extremely high and Sheeran and his team are aiming to join the fight against online ticket resellers.

A statement from Sheeran’s team read: "Ed and his team have a strict stance against anyone using secondary ticketing websites for profit. On this tour, any tickets that are resold will not be valid unless they are bought and sold through Ed’s official resale partner, Twickets , which allows fan to fan sales at face value + booking fee only – this means no profit to touts and no one getting ripped off. On all the stadium dates you will be required to bring your tickets, booking confirmation and credit card, plus a valid form of ID or you will not be granted entry to the show."

The issue of secondary ticketing websites and ‘ticket harvesting’ is an increasingly prevalent one. Just a mere matter of days ago the issue raised its head again when Foo Fighters announce a one off London date at the O2. It sold out within minutes and tickets are now being resold online for upwards of £350.

It’s a problem that frustratingly has no solution as there are no current UK laws against this sort of behaviour.

In fact, it took a petition started by Josh Franceschi of You Me At Six to reach 80,000 signatures to even get the discussion into The House of Commons.

Speaking to the MEN back in January he admitted the he wasn’t totally happy with the solution as nothing concrete came of it.

"Hopefully, ticket sites are under pressure from not only us but also the media and the industry. There's a feeling that people do want to do something about it and they are working towards it. Time will tell how much substance their words carry but I'm hopeful."

In New York there is already a legislation in place against ticket harvesting in that can result in a 51-week prison sentence. Franceschi wants the UK to follow suit. However, until that happens, proactive thinking from the likes of Ed Sheeran is currently the best we can hope for in this country.