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Barça touches the pockets of subscribers: goodbye to the Free Seat

BarcelonaBarça’s 57,000 registered members received a pitcher of cold water this Friday. The club has announced that the Free Seat will not be reactivated this season, alleging that it already has many tickets on sale, precisely because many subscribers have taken a leave of absence. In this way, on days when there is a match at the stadium but these subscribers are unable to go, they will still keep the place and will not be able to transfer it to the club to resell it.

The problem is basically economic. Barça has around 83,500 members at the Camp Nou. Therefore, before the pandemic, it had about 16,000 tickets available for each match day. Of these, some were sold at the box office and others went to commitments of the entity. As there was usually more demand, the Free Seat allowed members to release the card. It was a win win of manual. The club had an extra place to sell – and it was more expensive than the proportional part of the season ticket – so it was a drawer. And the partner also received financial compensation. Some money that was deducted from the season ticket the following season. Thus, a grandstand seat worth almost 1,200 euros, in practice ended up costing him much less money. In a remarkable part of the cases, the discount came to be more than 50%.

But with the pandemic, Barça gave the option that those subscribers who wanted to could take a leave of absence: they gave the seat to the club and recovered that place the following year. The 2020-21 season has already taken place, when all the matches were played behind closed doors, and this has been repeated. Last year there were more than 18,000 and this time 26,238 members have taken part. Therefore, now the entity has much more supply of seats. This is the justification given by the club for not reactivating the Free Seat. As the next season (2022-23) will start without capacity limitations, Barça will not offer the possibility for subscribers to take a leave of absence and then the service will be reactivated.

The partner, taken by surprise

However, many subscribers were unaware of the club’s intentions when they decided to renew the card in the summer. In fact, Barça had openly explained to the members that the Free Seat would be operational again when the public restrictions ended. ARA was able to verify this by consulting directly with the Barça Support Office (OAB). In fact, this same week the OAB reported that the service was “trying to launch for the match against Alava” and that if timing it was not arrived in time, “it will be operational for the next match”, the derby against Espanyol.

In addition to saving money with the next year’s season ticket, the Free Seat had also helped minimize the sale of tickets between individuals, a practice prohibited by the club’s bylaws, which states that ” prohibits onerous assignment “. That is, legally a member can leave their card but without charge. This practice is very common, and in a small percentage there is also financial compensation. “No matter how much it was banned, we know that a lot of people sold their tickets. It has happened and will always happen. Now, without a Free Seat, there is a risk that it will increase,” said one of the sources consulted.

Ticketing billing will rise

With the Free Seat, Barça made money selling more tickets, but the profits were not net because part of it was used to compensate the subscriber. This year, however, all profits will go to the entity. However, from the social area remember that the surpluses have caused a significant economic damage to the income of the season: only 29.16 million have been collected in season tickets, less than half of the 60.88 he received the last year before the pandemic. Barça expected 67.61 million at the box office, but counting that the Camp Nou would have 60% capacity in February. Now the stadium can be completely filled. Therefore, between one thing and another, turnover will far exceed budgeted forecasts. On the day of the classic alone 4.5 million were entered. In addition, and as reported by ARA, the club has opened the door to the option that any of the subscribers on leave can regain their seat. An “exceptional” measure and one that, according to the offices, does not seem to be massive.

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