Spanish LaLiga giants Barcelona have defended their ticket resale platform after accusations of anomalies were made in a report on Catalan channel TV3.
The club’s Seient Lliure (free seat) service lets Barça season-ticket holders notify the club that they will not be attending a match and allow others to book their seat.
The profit for the sale of the ticket is then supposed to be split evenly between the season ticket holder and the club. After processing fees and taxes, they earn over a third of the money from the sale.
However, the TV3 report suggested that the club had on 10 occasions in the last three years sold tickets at an inflated price, with the promise of a ‘VIP experience’, but not passed on the extra profit to the Seient Lliure member.
Barcelona’s first vice-president Jordi Cardoner defended the practice, saying the actual seat was sold at the same price, and thus the member still gets the money he or she deserves. The extra profit, Cardoner argued, was for the VIP experience in itself, which included catered food and other perks, and thus not part of the Seient Lliure agreement.
In a statement, Cardoner said: “Barça has acted correctly in payment for Seient Lliure, and the sole beneficiary of the system are the club members.
“The club shall continue to act in the same way on this matter because we understand the system to be the fairest one for our members. All members that felt it opportune have been able to address our OAB (supporter services office) and have been duly heard and informed.
“We feel very upset and let down by the report on our local television channel. It is a shame that a public channel should report something so biased. We have made many mistakes in the past and we shall continue to make mistakes, but on this issue we are convinced that that is not so – we have done the right thing.”
IMAGE: Ayman.antar7
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