Joan Laporta accuses Barcelona fans of selling tickets to Eintracht Frankfurt

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has insisted that the club are not to blame for the presence of around 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt fans at Camp Nou for Thursday's Europa League exit, instead suggesting that fans had brought it on themselves by selling tickets to German supporters.

Around 5,000 tickets were given to Frankfurt for the game, which ended in a 3-2 victory for the Bundesliga side, but that number was blown out of the water by the amount of German fans who were in attendance. Those in charge at Camp Nou admitted the match didn't even feel like a home game.

The club confirmed that 37.746 fans attended the game using Barcelona season tickets, 34,440 were sold to the general public, 5,000 were given to Frankfurt and 2,425 were made available for corporate invitations.

An internal investigation into how so many away fans could get tickets for the game was quickly launched, and Laporta told TV3 that Barcelona as a club did absolutely nothing wrong.

"We put 34,440 tickets on sale. Barcelona fans should know that these tickets were available because season-ticket holders gave them up," Laporta began. "We put these tickets on sale with restrictions: they could not be bought with German credit cards or from any IP address in that country. We did all the restrictions we could, as we have done for the last six seasons.

"These tickets were located in the third tier, which ended up being all white in the hands of the Germans. Of the 37,746 season tickets registered at the stadium, many also ended up in the hands of German fans.

"Those who bought the tickets sent them to the Germans, this is evidence.

"There are two issues here: the tickets sold in the third tier and the season tickets which went to the rival fans. The club is not to blame for what happened. We are responsible for organising the match, and those who know me know that I am taking responsibility and taking action, and we will take action."

To combat the issue going forward, Laporta confirmed that all tickets sold for international games in future will be tied to the name of the person buying them, with ID to be shown at the stadium to prove the tickets have not been passed on.

"In international competitions, tickets will be registered to the buyer," Laporta said. "It is a measure that we did not want to take because it impacts the fans who have a normal and ordinary attitude, which is the vast majority, but we have no choice.

"We don't want what happened in the stadium to ever happen again."