Barcelona president explains Frankfurt ticket fiasco: “Socis misused their subscription”

Barcelona president Joan Laporta addressed the public earlier today to discuss the ticketing scandal that happened last week for the game against Eintracht Frankfurt.

While only 5,000 tickets had been allotted to away fans, more than 30,000 supporters ended up at Camp Nou on Thursday. It emerged that several Barça socis ended up giving up their tickets to the Frankfurt supporters.

Laporta spoke after the game, claiming that he felt ‘ashamed’ by the incident, while also stating that the club was not responsible for what happened.

Now, he has addressed the situation in detail, confirming that socis had misused their subscription privileges and handed off their tickets to German supporters, leading to Camp Nou being swarmed by the Frankfurt fans.

Firstly, though, Laporta thanked the Barça supporters who attended the game on Thursday night, saying: “I want to thank the members and the Catalans who attended the game against Eintracht Frankfurt.”

He also issued an apology to those who felt uncomfortable by the situation created during the game, saying: “I apologize to those involved who did not feel comfortable in the Eintracht match due to the strong presence of German fans.”

Opening up on the mismanagement of the ticketing, Laporta said: “There was a misuse of the subscriptions by a group of socios, who gave their subscriptions to German fans. It’s sad and it will be subject to analysis.”

He also added that the mechanisms on the club website in place to stop such issues were outdated and will be renewed at the earliest.

“The control mechanisms on the website were outdated and insufficient. We have inherited this system from the previous board, we thought it could work, but we have seen that for big games it doesn’t.”

Laporta further revealed that the club had the list of the socis who had bought tickets at discounted prices before selling them off to Frankfurt fans.

“We have the list of socios who have bought tickets and the measures to be taken will be taken. There are 7,800 members who bought tickets with the discount and these tickets ended up in the hands of German fans,” he said.

“7,000 season-ticket holders and 7,800 socios resold their ticket to German fans. We do not have the will to persecute anyone. We are dissapointed with their attitude, and we want to act with transparency,” the Barcelona president added.

Laporta also insisted that the club will need to find ways to tackle the ticket reselling groups in order to stop from such events happening in the future.

“The Germans tried to buy tickets normally, but the system prevented them from doing so. They found other ways, through these agents and ticket reselling platforms,” he said.

“We have to work hard to take down these organized resale groups. They have a good number of season tickets in their possession. We once decided to ban violent ultras from the stadium. Now we have to ban organized ticket resellers.”

Laporta also revealed that he had explained the situation to Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez after the game while lamenting that the result could have been different if the atmosphere in the stadium was not the way it was.

“I had to explain what happened to Xavi the night that it happened. Perhaps with a different atmosphere, we would have done better in the match,” the club supremo said.

Shedding light on UEFA’s response to the matter, Laporta stated: “UEFA told us that we did do everything in our power to stop any major incidents from happening.”

In light of Thursday’s events, Barcelona’s ‘Animation Stand’ decided to boycott the game against Cadiz on Monday night. Laporta urged the supporters’ group to return to the stadium and support the team in the difficult final phase of the season.

“We want the animation stand back for the next match. We don’t like to see it empty. They help the team,” he said.

“We are facing the final stretch of La Liga. The truth is that now we have difficulties to win. I know that Xavi is looking for solutions and although while there is life there is hope, we must fight in these seven finals.”

Laporta also touched upon the injury to midfield sensation Pedri, who is unlikely to play again this term, saying: “Pedri was becoming the leader in this Barça team.”

Speaking about the measures that the club might introduce to prevent another situation like Thursday night, Laporta added:

“We’re thinking about incentives for season ticket holders who actually come to the matches. Or to implement a minimum of matches they have to attend per season. We’re reflecting on it.”

Touching upon the hostile atmosphere at Camp Nou on Thursday, he said: “We were worried about the German fans who blocked Xavi’s arrival around the stadium. Our players were insulted, things could have gone wrong.”

Laporta also revealed how much Barcelona earned financially from that game, stating: “Barça earned €3.6 million from the Frankfurt match.”

Source: SPORT