Update on 13 March: As expected, the Administrative Court of Campania has confirmed in expedited proceedings yesterday’s second decree from the prefecture of the City of Naples and rejected the appeal by Eintracht Frankfurt for the suspension of the decree.
The situation is therefore as it had been communicated and explained the previous evening. In view of the conditions of the decree, which state that tickets are not available to residents of Frankfurt, Eintracht Frankfurt will be forgoing the club’s entire allocation.
Original news from 12 March
There has been a new decree from the prefecture of the City of Naples, attempting to achieve what resoundingly failed first time around. On Sunday evening, it was decreed that SSC Napoli would not be allowed to sell tickets for the UEFA Champions League round of 16 second leg this coming Wednesday,15 March, to anyone resident in Frankfurt am Main. The previous decree extended the ban to people resident in Germany. After the Administrative Court of Campania had upheld Eintracht Frankfurt’s appeal for an interim injunction and declared the decree to be unlawful, the Naples authorities decided to take further steps.
“The new decree is no less unlawful in its contents and its reasoning and furthermore is completely unsuitable, as it is a well-known fact that two-thirds of our fans are from outside the Rhine-Main region and do not come from Frankfurt,” said Eintracht board member Philipp Reschke about the new decree.
We will therefore be forgoing our entire away allocation, unless some aspect of the decree should change at short notice, contrary to expectations.
Board member Philipp Reschke
“There would be countless possible ways of actually circumventing this decree and getting parts of our fan-base into the stadium. But firstly we are not going to divide ourselves up into postcode areas, and secondly we do not wish to have anyone on site running the clear and obvious risk of an arbitrary administrative decision, the like of which we have been experiencing since the first leg in an unprecedented way on the part of all those responsible in Naples. We will therefore be forgoing our entire away allocation, unless some aspect of the decree should change at short notice, contrary to expectations.”
Eintracht Frankfurt will also be lodging an appeal against the new decree from the prefecture of the City of Naples. “In view of the timing, it is more about the principle for us and how it affects future decisions,” said Reschke of the forthcoming protracted legal proceedings.
