By Roberto Lamprecht
Anyone who thought it couldn’t be worse than relegation was wrong. Hertha BSC may have messed up the ticket sales for the first leg on Thursday against HSV (8:30 p.m.) so badly that an invasion of tens of thousands of HSV fans is threatening the Olympic Stadium. Is that even the home advantage gone?
Sheer chaos reigns in the office. Managing Director Ingo Schiller on Twitter: “I will provide information on this at the general meeting. We didn’t solve that well.”
And to the BZ Schiller says: “I apologize to all those affected!
TICKET CHAOS!
After the free sale at Hertha started on Monday afternoon, many Hamburgers in Berlin stocked up on tickets. In the meantime even the Hertha website collapsed.
The telephones in the office were no longer silent, and there were masses of insults online. Hertha’s supporters are furious. There are several reasons for this.
► Hertha’s fans fear a fan invasion of the HSVer in the Olympic Stadium!
On Monday Hertha started the free sale at 12 noon! Too early? Twitter user Yannik: “Why are you starting the free advance sale? What’s wrong with you guys!!!” Justin_Framke: “Shame on you! So the ticketing!” And Andre Modde predicts: “It should be like Eintracht in Barcelona.”
Is Berlin experiencing a second Barcelona? There, Frankfurt fans felt like they took over the whole stadium in the Europa League semifinals.
Hertha’s finance boss Ingo Schiller
Hertha’s fans are afraid. The Hamburg guest ticket contingent of 7,500 tickets was gone in just ten minutes. Now the HSV fans are cheekily announcing that they are stocking up on masses of free tickets from the Hertha online shops.
Hertha fan PlatteKing21: “We are taken and you don’t do anything.”
Speaking against this, however, is that almost 50,000 tickets had been sold by the time open sales started. Mostly to Berlin season ticket holders and members.
In Hertha circles it is also said that the postal code when ordering online shows that there may not be an invasion of HSV fans. That will show up on Thursday.
► Poor communication from the club to the fans!
At the start of the free sale, there was a lot of criticism as to why members had no right of first refusal? But they did!
The disappointed Hertha fans after the 1: 2 at BVB in the guest block Photo: dpa
Since last Saturday at 6 p.m. Hertha members have been able to buy eight tickets each – until Monday at 12 p.m.!
But the communication between ticketing and fans didn’t work! Many fans didn’t buy it.
Hertha BSC
► There was also chaos for season ticket holders.
Some bought tickets even though their season ticket would have been valid for the relegation. However, only with a code that the club sent by email. That was not clear to many.
Still others passed on their code to give friends a supposedly free ticket. It was the same in two previous home games, where the code served as an additional free ticket.
Hertha is hoping for a lot of support from the ranks, but doesn’t make it easy for the Berlin fans Photo: dpa
Problem: This time the season ticket holders needed the code for themselves to get into the stadium…
Finance boss Schiller again: “Anyone who has a problem with their code should contact [email protected].”
Does that still help? BZ stay tuned to the ticket chaos at Hertha!
