Barça apologizes for German invasion of Camp Nou and announces “registered tickets” to European matches

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BarcelonaThe loyal Barça fans who went to the Camp Nou on Thursday couldn’t believe it. No one remembered the same thing, neither with the visit of British clubs nor the classic one against Real Madrid in which tourists appeared with the white shirt under the stones. The presence of thousands of Eintracht fans in every corner of the stadium endangered security and caused many club members to choose to leave their venue early. “They were drunk and they watched the game straight, occupying the stairs to make a gang. You couldn’t see anything and if you told them something they didn’t pay attention to you. second tier veteran. “I haven’t remembered anything like this in over thirty years. In my area, everything was German,” explains Marc, a first-grader. Everyone was wondering how it was allowed because, without the free seat and with Barça managing a lot of subscriber tickets on leave, much of the responsibility lay with the club, not the paid members. But ARA was able to see live how the resale was in August and how some German fans entered the field with season tickets on loan. Most Eintracht fans consulted claimed that they had bought tickets from tour operators and websites.

“Mechanisms failed”

The club argues with ARA that tickets could not be purchased from Germany, because the computer system detects the origin of the card or the IP of the purchase and cancels it, unless it is from a member. or club member. Institutional Vice President Maria Elena Fort explains that the club “did not sell tickets directly”, but admits that the mechanisms “have failed and we must apologize”. Following UEFA regulations, Barça sent the German club the 5,000 tickets corresponding to 5% of the Camp Nou’s capacity. Despite this, more than 25,000 German fans made the trip. It is not the first time that the fans of this club have moved more than 15,000 people on a trip, but in this case they did find tickets to areas for local fans. The presence of visiting fans mixed with locals generated some fights and that many members of Barça, tips, left their locality. The president, Joan Laporta, defined the show as “a shame”, and stated that they would study the facts to prevent it from happening again.

Three million in tickets

Due to the large presence of German fans in Barcelona, ​​the club closed the sale of tickets at the Camp Nou box office last Wednesday to prevent the rival fans from buying them. The club put on sale for the party the more than 25,000 tickets corresponding to the members who this year took advantage of a year of leave of absence of the season ticket, to which were added the seats that the subscribers released free of charge before the party. A move the club approved last week to “maximize support for the team and generate new revenue.” Speaking on SER’s ‘Que t’hi jugues’ program, Fort put the club’s profits in tickets thanks to the match at three million euros, adding that “it’s not good news” as the economic success is become a social and sporting defeat. Xavi himself said that “the dressing room wants explanations to know what happened”.

Available tickets, according to Fort, were sold online and “from minute zero” both IP addresses and German credit cards were blocked. The club is now investigating the “circuit” so that these tickets end up in the hands of Eintracht fans. One of the hypotheses is that ticket reseller companies buy tickets with Spanish credit cards and sell them to visiting fans, an explanation that fits with some of the versions told on ARA by Eintracht fans. Lying in the citadel park, two young men admit that a contact handed them tickets in an envelope to a bar near the stadium. ARA has asked various German fans to stay in the city for a few more days. “I bought it on the official Barça website. With software you could do it as if it were in Spain,” explains Marco, who admits that he needed the help of his teenage son. Among the whatspp groups of fans were moving instructions on how to fool the Barça website, buying without being able to detect that they were Germans. Others, like Jakob, say the tickets were bought by one of the directors of a fan club on a ticket website. “He bought about 20 of them, we were separated, but some moved to be together during the match,” he says. “I never had the feeling of doing anything illegal, but I knew that in theory I couldn’t be in the local fan zone. We were very surprised to see the lack of support that Barça had and that no one asked us for anything.” adds Jakob.

Fort explains that “Barça works with official tour operators, but they have a reduced package of tickets. We have to analyze what happened to the tickets online, who bought them and why they came to the Germans. ” The club believes that in order to understand the scenes seen, it is necessary to study a number of aspects: from the role of tour operators to individual resales, to the traps set to circumvent security mechanisms. Nor did it help at all that it was Easter, that the rival is the one that moves the most fans on the continent and that so many subscribers are still on leave after the pandemic. A perfect storm that shows the problems that the Camp Nou has been suffering from for years.

To prevent a similar situation from happening again in the future, Fort does not rule out that the club will force the tickets to be nominal, although he points out that all options will be studied, which warns that they can be “drastic”. In Germany, for example, if a subscriber does not use his card a certain number of matches, he can lose it. At Barça, a large bag of subscribers do not normally use the card or release it on match day. In fact, Joan Laporta himself explained that “we have to take on the responsibility that belongs to us. We are responsible and we have to look for solutions. And as we want it to never happen again, it has been decided that in international competitions, tickets will be registered. A measure that was not intended to be taken as it is uncomfortable for Barcelona players with normal and correct behavior, but it must be done “.

Masip talks about selling tickets

Enric Masip, an adviser to President Laporta, said on Twitter: “Everyone has the right to sell their tickets, but the reality is that seeing a Camp Nou with so many fans of the rival is very unfortunate…” With this statement, Masip seemed to admit that some partners allow you to use your season ticket to rival fans in exchange for financial compensation.

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