Anyone who wants to watch the smoothly dancing Jamal Musiala outplaying the opponents or striker Harry Kane nailing a free kick under the crossbar must have a ticket for an FC Bayern game – and a valid one at that. The 37th Civil Division of the Munich I Regional Court has now put a stop to the fraudulent reselling of tickets. It prohibited the sales platform Viagogo from offering so-called empty tickets: tickets that are not even on the market yet and that are also advertised with the addition “only a few tickets left”.
Although the Munich team were unable to lift the championship trophy at Rathausplatz this year, it is safe to assume that fans will cheer on the Reds in large numbers again in the new season. FC Bayern sells the tickets via its website, partly to club members, partly on a secondary market. These stadium tickets are personalized because the club wants to prevent retailers from buying them at the normal price and then offering them for horrific prices. In its terms and conditions, the club points out that commercial resale or resale via other internet platforms is a breach of contract.
Now FC Bayern Munich AG has filed a lawsuit against the secondary ticket market retailer Viagogo. On the platform, retailers were offering football tickets for FC Bayern games that had not yet been issued by the club. In addition, Viagogo advertised the offer with a limited number of tickets.
Viagogo argued in court that such speculative transactions are common in commercial transactions. In addition, it considers FC Bayern’s terms and conditions to be invalid, particularly since they would “unduly impair” a ticket holder when reselling the ticket.
The civil chamber’s counter-argument was devastating for Viagogo: the platform must in future prevent short selling and notices such as “only a few tickets left,” as press spokesman Jens Kröger explains. This business practice misleads consumers, “because they otherwise think they are sure to buy a ticket, even though the sale is ultimately based on speculation,” according to the ruling.
According to the court, FC Bayern had convincingly argued that the ticket prices were not only based on profit-oriented considerations, but also that the prices were capped for social reasons. The football club was even entitled to turn away fans at the entrance who had purchased their tickets via Viagogo.
In the lawsuit, Bayern also complained that Viagogo GmbH was buying tickets through straw men it had employed and then reselling them at inflated prices on its own platform. Viagogo employees are said to have changed the names on the tickets in order to give the holders access to the stadium. However, the court was not convinced of this accusation after the plaintiff presented evidence. It cannot be assumed that Viagogo was involved in the forgeries. The verdict is not legally binding.
