Frankfurt fans highlight culture clash during Barcelona game

A week has passed since a reported 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt supporters veritably took over Camp Nou to see their team record a famous victory over Barcelona - but the Spanish Inquisition into the home side's ticketing policy continues.

After Catalan media criticized a German fan "invasion," Barcelona president Joan Laporta announced that the club would only sell personalized tickets linked to ID for future home games, while some fan groups have said they intend to boycott upcoming games in protest at circumstances which saw them outnumbered and outsung in their own stadium.

"A lot of people felt unsafe. Not because anything violent happened, but because we're used to being surrounded by Barcelona fans," explains Marc Rossell Ricart, 49, a long-time Barcelona member, or socio, who places the blame at his own club's door.

"They tried to shift the blame to the socios [for selling tickets on], but that's almost impossible," he tells DW. "The Germans largely bought tickets from the club. And the club took the money."

"We weren't expecting all those people to get into the stadium," said Barcelona's head of security Lluis Venteo, who said that footage from club drones flying over the turnstiles showed the German fans at the gates all had tickets, "even though the Eintracht officials assured us that most would not."

Clash of cultures

Bundesliga clubs taking large followings abroad isn't a new phenomenon. Four years ago, Cologne took some 25,000 fans to a Europa League game against Arsenal in London. In 2011, 10,000 Hannover fans traveled to their club's away game at FC Copenhagen.

Eintracht Frankfurt themselves were accompanied by 10,000 fans or more to many of their European away games during their 18/19 campaign, including some 12,000 supporters against Lazio in Rome.

"I think Frankfurt fans are a bit insane," says Cettina Kramer, a 27-year-old Frankfurt supporter who made the trip to the Camp Nou. One reason behind the numbers, she argues, was the worry that it might have been Eintracht's last European game for a while.

"Not too long ago we were fighting relegation, and despite all that, we always wanted to play in Europe," she explains. "That's why everyone said they'll take whatever's possible."

But Thursday's game was about more than just the numbers. In a week which marks one year since the failed attempt by 12 self-appointed European superclubs to create a breakaway European Super League - including Barcelona, but not Frankfurt - events at the Camp Nou also highlighted a clash between two footballing realities.

"[German fans] have a very different culture," acknowledged Lluis Venteo. "They enter the ground very early, they take their positions, they watch the match on foot, cheering and drinking, while our fans [tend to] watch the game sat down."

Even if some home fans felt intimidated, both Rossell Ricart and Kramer agree that the exchanges between the two sets of fans were generally peaceful, with many partying together before and after the game. But when it comes to the connections between the two clubs and their match-going supporters, the situation couldn't be more different.

Like most clubs in Germany, Eintracht Frankfurt adhere to the 50+1 rule, a German Football League (DFL) regulation which stipulates that club members retain majority voting rights in an outsourced company which operates the professional football team.

Kramer describes a club which listens to its match-going supporters and ultra groups, aided by the fact that some club officials come from the terraces themselves, including club president Peter Fischer.

"As long as there's regular communication between both sides, I have the feeling nothing can come between us," says Kramer.

Indeed, Frankfurt recently announced plans to extend the capacity of their home Waldstadion from 51,500 to 61,000 - partly by adding 11,000 new standing places. "The bosses know it and that's why I don't think that it will change anytime soon."

Financial problems

Barcelona are also member-owned, albeit without the separation of powers and system of checks and balances created by the German 50+1 model.

Around 144,000 socios are able to vote for the club president every six years (or more regularly in exceptional circumstances), but it is otherwise left to that president to balance opposing interests among an increasingly global support.

"We're quite used to being international, but it's also essential that Barcelona remain a Catalan club," explains Rossell Ricart. "That's something that's not negotiable."

In recent years, Barcelona have also had significant financial problems. Organized as registered associations, and without an outsourced limited company common under the German 50+1 model, socio-owned Spanish clubs cannot raise capital through traditional financial means such as sale of shares, stock market flotation or private investment.

When years of miss-management, fuelled by years of presidential promises to sign and retain expensive top names, were exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic, Barcelona found themselves forced to let superstar Lionel Messi leave on a free to get the Argentinian's wages off the books.

The subsequent failure to progress from the Champions League group stage and the relegation to the Europa League is what made the culture clash with Eintracht Frankfurt possible in the first place.

Those acute financial concerns are a key reason behind Barcelona's - and rivals Real Madrid's - continued support for the European Super League, while the other would-be revolutionaries quickly backed down following a public outcry. German giants Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund didn't get involved in the first place. Eintracht Frankfurt weren't even invited.

Super League: 'si' or 'nein'?

"A Super League would never come into question for us anyway," says Frankfurt fan Kramer. "The clubs who wanted to play in it are obviously big but, for me, an away game in Bochum in the rain under floodlights is worth a lot more than playing against the same rivals again and again."

But Barcelona supporter Rossell Ricart says he still stands behind the project, very much echoing a mainstream view among Spanish fans: "Whether we like it or not, football is a business. And for the business, I think [a Super League] is necessary."

Whether in terms of sporting pedigree, ownership models, financial stability, styles of fan culture or support for the Super League, Barcelona and Eintracht Frankfurt represent two different versions of modern football. Last week's events at the Camp Nou made the contrast clear for all to see.

At least in Frankfurt, the preference is clear, as Kramer concludes: "Through showing Barcelona fans how much this game meant to us, I feel we've shown Barcelona what they lost."

Edited by Matt Ford.