Do Barcelona and AS Roma have a problem with their tickets?

The ticket for Barcelona-Roma will cost almost 90 euros, as announced by Carlo Feliziani on the sidelines of the Champions League's draw, generating a lot of protests from Roma fans. 90 euros to stay at the last ring, in the dovecote, as they say in Rome: this is the reception that Barça has reserved for Giallorossi supporters.

We do not know what justifies the price: perhaps the fact of seeing Messi and his companions playing, as if Roma fans were happy to see Messi and his friends playing. To contextualize it, it must be said that the scourge of expensive tickets in Spain has reached standards so high that in Italy we have not known yet, even if everything suggests that we will within a few years. In addition, Barcelona is among the most expensive clubs in La Liga: one only needs to think about the fact that just on February 6th El Pais announced that this season has the worst average of viewers of the last decade of the Nou Camp, that is 64,000. No wonder, then, if the club's Twitter account announced 50,959 attendees for the Copa del Rey's semi-final against Valencia on February 1st. About 48 thousand empty seats: a scandal for the Nou Camp. And the discontent spreads among the fans who would like to enjoy the stratospheric performances of La Liga's first team at the stadium.

There is also a scary fact: in the last comparison in Catalunia, in 2015, the ticket costed "only" 53 euros for the Romanists. A price that should obviously be contested. Liverpool fans have their rights to ask that the same ceiling of 30 pounds adopted (after long protests) for the tickets of the host sectors of the Premier League would be applied to the spectacular challenge against Manchester City.

Paying so much does not pay

Are we sure that raising prices leads to more benefits than negative aspects for a club? Let's look at the example of Barcelona: those who love hot stadiums certainly do not like the Nou Camp, even more this year that the stadium is struggling to fill up. And the support of a fan is perhaps the only thing that Messi and his companions envy to other teams. We also look into our home: the high prices of Roma-Shakhtar have meant that As Roma, for a fundamental game, has sold only 47 thousand tickets. Neither the company's appeal through promotional videos or the statements on the TV could convince the fans' pockets.

The problem will be repeated for the second leg of the quarterfinals (especially if the first leg goes wrong), because the prices are similar to those of 2015, that were already prohibitive: in free sale the curves will cost 40 euros, the distinti 60 and the grandstands from 65 to 130. And only little changes if the subscribers are able to save 5 or 10 euros as the numbers of the match against the Ukrainians could suggest

To read the prices of Roma-Barcelona hurts because this year it looked as if the club had finally undertook the right path, with coupons even at 10-15 euros in certain occasions, discounts for students and other initiatives that had shown how strong was the desire of the stadium in Rome. The hope (also for the new Stadium) is that we will adopt the strategy of lowering prices by balancing the loss with the highest number of tickets sold, gaining at the same time a full stadium and the happiness of the fans.