Copenhagen Refuse To Sell Champions League Tickets To Fans With Non-Danish Sounding Names

Chris Wright

31st, August 2013

11 Comments

By Chris Wright

Soccer - UEFA Champions League - Round of 16 - Second Leg - Chelsea v FC Copenhagen - Stamford Bridge

FC Copenhagen have taken the executive decision to refuse to issue home match tickets for the club’s upcoming Champions League group clashes with Galatasaray, Real Madrid and Juventus to any applicants with ‘non-Danish’ sounding names.

The decision was made to prevent away fans from procuring tickets in the home sections of the Parken stadium, which the club said was a “main safety concern.”

Fans were allowed to purchase three-match ticket bundles for Copenhagen’s trio of home Group B fixtures but many were angered when, instead of receiving their tickets in the post, they instead were faced with emails from the club telling them that their tickets had been cancelled due to “security reasons.”

Copenhagen club secretary Daniel (no, not Dennis) Rommedahl cleared up the club’s stance after hundreds of angry fans bombarded the club with criticism, insisting that fans with non-traditional-sounding names will be able to plead their case:

“Safety is always our main concern when it comes to events at Parken. Therefore we make every effort to ensure that fans of our guests only have access to the away section.

“If a dialogue with the customer shows otherwise, the purchase will be approved.

“We were fully aware that our decision would cause a reaction, but it was the best solution. We are fully aware that everyone will not agree, but discrimination it is not.”

You can see what they were going for, but you’d have to argue that Copenhagen’s heavy-handed approach is over-doing it slightly.

Silly Copenhagen.

(Via Goal)

Posted in Champions League, FAIL, Newsnow

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11 Comments

  1. Jarren says:

    It’s very silly.

    Unless there’s some previous between Turkish / Italian / Spanish fans and the Danes?

    Seems highly implausible.

    • Chris says:

      @Jarren: Seem to remember Copenhagen having issues with Gala fans a couple of seasons ago. Possibly just made that up though.

  2. Jim says:

    Sounds ridiculous. At Ajax you just have to show your league seasonticket to buy CL tickets.

  3. Tom the bees fan says:

    surely they could of looked at the fans addresses rather than names. i cant see there being a huge Galatasaray support in Denmark.

    and it is discrimination whatever they say, it might be positive discrimination (contradiction in terms in my view but leave that to another time)for a good reason but if your doing it by names it is discrimination. if someone that has emigrated to Denmark surely they have as much right as anyone else to go and watch there new local team.

  4. Simon says:

    No, you’re kind of right, Chris. It was the UEFA cup final back in 2000(?), though, between Arsenal and Gala. So the bust-up wasn’t between Copenhageners and Gala-fans, but rather between English and Turkish fans. More recently, there was an incident with fans from Hannover, as far as I recall, where Danish fans got mixed up with the German fans on the stands. This caused some unpleasant scenes, and is what FCK wants to avoid.

    More disturbingly, the same Daniel Rommedahl also said yesterday, that if you’ve bought a ticket for the “neutral” stand, and show up in a Gala/Juve/Real shirt, you’ll be denied entrance.

  5. Høøtie says:

    There’s no way around this being discrimination.

    That said, I can’t help but wonder if they used an algorithm or if they made some poor intern pore over ticket purchases and look for names that appeared un-Danish.

  6. Anonymous says:

    So….anyone if their name is Jacobson ((fat pie-eating Swede, no doubt)) instead of Jacobsen, or, say, Vetekole ((Belgian relatives of their striker)), or Abdellaoue (( relatives of their Norwegian striker, born in Oslo, who just returned to the squad from a loan spell at Vålerenga)) will be shown a red card and sent off. Santin doesn’t sound very Danish, either, so…their top striker, from Brazil, Cesar Santin couldn’t buy his way in either. Bloody hell.

  7. Fat Nakago says:

    So….anyone if their name is Jacobson ((fat pie-eating Swede, no doubt)) instead of Jacobsen, or, say, Vetekole ((Belgian relatives of their striker)), or Abdellaoue (( relatives of their Norwegian striker, born in Oslo, who just returned to the squad from a loan spell at Vålerenga)) will be shown a red card and sent off. Santin doesn’t sound very Danish, either, so…their top striker, from Brazil, Cesar Santin couldn’t buy his way in either. Bloody Hell.

  8. Fat Nakago says:

    So….anyone if their name is Jacobson ((fat pie-eating Swede, no doubt)) instead of Jacobsen, or, say, Vetekole ((Belgian relatives of their striker)), or Abdellaoue (( relatives of their Norwegian striker, born in Oslo, who just returned to the squad from a loan spell at Vålerenga)) will be shown a red card and sent off. Santin doesn’t sound very Danish, either, so…their top striker, from Brazil, Cesar Santin couldn’t buy his way in either.

  9. Fat Nakago says:

    So….anyone if their name is Jacobson ((fat pie-eating Swede, no doubt)) instead of Jacobsen, or, say, Vetekole ((Belgian relatives of their striker)), or Abdellaoue (( relatives of their Norwegian striker, born in Oslo, who just returned to the squad from a loan spell at Vålerenga)) will be shown a red card and sent off.

    Santin doesn’t sound very Danish, either, so…their top striker, from Brazil, Cesar Santin couldn’t buy his way in either.

  10. Andy Carroll's Ponytail says:

    Cesar Satin sounds like a wrestler or porn star.

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