‘The club isn’t responsible’: Laporta explains Camp Nou ticket fiasco vs Frankfurt

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has opened up on the ticket fiasco that went down ahead of the club’s UEFA Europa League quarter-final second leg against Eintracht Frankfurt at Camp Nou.

The Catalans took on the Bundesliga outfit on Thursday night with everything to do after the first leg in Germany had ended in a 1-1 draw. Manager Xavi Hernandez had called for the supporters to be in full volume for the game to cheer the team to a victory.

However, Barça were in for a surprise when they arrived at the stadium as almost 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt supporters had swarmed Camp Nou even though only 5,000 away tickets had been allotted.

Expressing his dismay at the situation after the game, Laporta had called the occurrence a ‘shameful’ one for Barcelona fans.

Now, the president has tried to explain how German supporters were able to get their hands on so many tickets, despite only a small number being allotted for the away team.

Speaking to the media, Laporta said: “The club isn’t responsible for what happened.”

“We have put up 34,440 tickets for sale on the site, Barcelona fans should know that we put this number up because the members are on vacation. These tickets are sold with restrictions, they can not be bought from a German IP or a German credit card, we put all restrictions.”

The Barça president then added that the tickets Eintracht supporters obtained the tickets from third-party sources, while also saying that a large share of tickets for the season-pass holders had been sold to the opposition fans.

“The tickets obtained by German fans were purchased from a third party, and out of the 37,746 tickets for club members, a large number were sold to the Germans.”

Laporta insisted that measures will be taken to ensure that the incident does not repeat again in the future.

“We will register all tickets for matches played in European competitions. We didn’t want it because it would upset the club’s members, but we have no choice but to do so,” he said.

Source: BarçaTV+