In April 2017, a week after Lionel Messi plundered a late winner for Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu to claim his 500th goal for the club in a 3-2 win, a Real Madrid employee reflected on the global resonance of El Clásico.
“They come from all corners of the world and they spend millions doing it,” the unnamed individual told Marca. “It is like going to the best opera. There is nothing like it and, in the recent game, some paid 4,000 euros for a ticket on the black market.”
Fast forward to today and it is Barcelona, rather than the scalpers, who are demanding 4,000 euros (£3,500) for a top-end ticket to one of the season’s most eagerly anticipated fixtures.
Barcelona Clásico tickets: why are they €4,000?
With a £1.1bn stadium rebuild to finance, the club has already decided to start milking the commercial potential of the partially revamped Camp Nou, making VIP seats to next May’s fixture available at a premium price. The rationale behind the decision seems clear: aside from being potentially decisive in a La Liga title race that Barca currently lead by just four points, the fixture will mark the first showdown between the Spanish rivals since the semi-complete stadium was reopened last month (unless, of course, the clubs are drawn against one another in the Copa del Rey or Champions League).
With only 45,000 seats available – the eventual capacity will be 105,000, although probably not before 2027, when work on the arena’s top tier and retractable roof is expected to be completed – the game is already shaping up to be an “I was there” moment.
Rarely, though, has the cost of being there been quite so exorbitant; at least, not through official channels. While the seats are directly behind the team bench and allow pre- and post-match access to a VIP lounge with premium catering, the price represents a significant markup on the fixtures preceding it. The same seats cost a relatively modest 900 euros for the preceding home game against Celta Vigo, while the price for Espanyol’s visit 10 days earlier is 1,000 euros. Each ticket also commands a booking fee of 30 euros.
El Clásico VIP tickets: how does the price compare?
A comparable seat for February’s game between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich costs 535 euros, while gold level tickets for the following month’s Milan derby start at 735 euros, although the top-price platinum ticket, featuring premium seating and hospitality, comes in at a cool 3,660 euros.
It is all enough to make the uproar over the cost of World Cup final tickets, the cheapest of which was £3,119 before a small number of £45 seats was made available by Fifa in response to a backlash from fans, look like a storm in a tea cup.
