At most sporting events, parents don't have to pay extra admission for infants so small they can easily sit on someone's lap.
FC Barcelona has dispensed with that policy, apparently. After a mother bought six tickets and arrived at a match with five friends and her baby, the child was denied entry, with the club insisting that the child have its own seat.
To get through the gates, the mother had to spend €54 -- roughly $61.20 in American dollars -- for the 10-month-old child to have its own seat, according to a report in Marca.
Even more ridiculous? The seat was in a separate part of the stadium, away from the mother.
Nobody's buying the notion that an infantwould occupy its own seat in a different part of the stadium. Instead, the baby (who is not the kid pictured here but that's youngest fan we could find) sat on its mother's lap during the game, leaving the extra seat unoccupied.
This is a terrifying event for any parent hoping to bring young fans to games without paying the extra fee for a seat that would go unused.
If FC Barca is disappointed it isn't selling out tournament games, though, maybe there's a different solution than trying to gouge parents.
And this wasn't some puff match that couldn't draw interest -- Barcelona was playing Athletic Bilbao, which won the UEFA Champions League earlier this summer for the first time since 1999.
The good news is that the bad publicity unraveling for FC Barcelona might be a deterrent for other professional teams that get daring enough to try a similar thing.
Nevertheless, parents have to be anxious that sports venues will follow the path blazed by discount airlines.
