The Italian antitrust authority has found the ticketing practices of nine Serie A clubs to be “unfair” following a consumer rights investigation launched last winter.
The l’Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) found there were “vexatious” contract terms in the sale of season tickets and individual match tickets for Atalanta, Cagliari, Genoa, Inter, Lazio, Milan, Juventus, Rome and Udinese.
The probe confirmed that there was “unfairness of some clauses” contained in the contractual conditions relating to refunds of season tickets and single match tickets, stating that “the right of consumers is not recognised”.
The investigation follows the failure of the clubs to remove clauses that exclude consumer rights to obtain a refund when stadiums are closed or matches postponed. The watchdog confirmed that conditions also exempt clubs from paying damages in cases where the postponement of a match has been the direct responsibility of the club.
AGCM scrapped a probe into Bologna and Parma after the clubs agreed to change some of their terms last January. In recent months, Milan and Udinese have attempted to reformulate the “vexatious” clauses with new contractual conditions, and Cagliari’s new drafting of the contracts was still deemed unfair by the watchdog.
The Antitrust Authority has ordered that an extract of the “unfair” measures be published on the homepage of the websites of the nine teams for 30 consecutive days.
Image: forzaq8 / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic / Edited for size
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