“I received an email in my spam folder on Tuesday evening at 9:07 p.m. to tell me that my tickets were cancelled.” Like Antoine, many people, Marseille supporters or simple football fans, have received this same message. Thus, they will therefore not be able to attend the round of 16 of the Europa League conference on Thursday March 17, opposing FC Basel to OM.
It all started with the decision of the cantonal police of Basel-City to close the visitor parking lot, on March 11, the day after the first leg during which some clashes had marred the evening between Basel and Marseille supporters. Marseille then requested mediation from UEFA, which yielded nothing.
The Swiss club then decides to leave its ticket office open for France. He was quickly overwhelmed with requests from supporters based in the Bouches-du-Rhône, but also from those living near Switzerland. Despite the possibility of placing Marseille fans in the same stand to prevent them from meeting with locals, FC Basel decided to cancel the tickets of the French supporters planned in number.
ticketing information #FCBOM
18,752 tickets sold so far. Your seats here https://t.co/oVgTemwF9p#MirSinBasel | #UECL pic.twitter.com/k6ePRD3dlX
– FC Basel 1893 (@FC_Basel_fr) March 14, 2022
Ticketing info before @OM_Official#MirSinBasel | #FCBOM | #UECL pic.twitter.com/JqGPXcNwUs
– FC Basel 1893 (@FC_Basel_fr) March 15, 2022
The online ticket office is also closed and only two shops are authorized to sell sesames. The situation frustrates a large number of supporters. “The match is at 6:45 p.m. so I had organized myself to be able to go there, especially in terms of work”, says Antoine. Without really being a supporter of Marseille, but living on the Franco-Swiss border, he had planned to go to the stadium with a friend.
“I was in a side stand at the bottom, in order to be well placed to see the match. We were neither with the ultras of Basel, nor with those of Marseille”he adds. “The decision needs to be reviewed, the method of communication needs to be reviewed… It’s a disaster”he berates.
On the side of the Commanderie, the management is headwind against the successive decisions of the Swiss club. She slays the “contradictory information (…) concerning the reception of its supporters“, in a statement published on the club’s official website on Tuesday. For Jacques Cardoze, communication director of Olympique de Marseille, “This is unheard of”.
“The principle of equity is not respected and the security argument cannot be accepted because the best security is to authorize visitor parking.”
Jacques Cardoze, OM communication directorat franceinfo: sport
FC Basel, which says it has canceled the “extra-regional reservations” from France, as well as reservations “clearly” made by French people, still expects to welcome “about 4,000 French spectators”distributed in different stands.