Officially announced as the club’s new player earlier today, Marcus Rashford will ultimately have to wait longer than he had imagined to don the FC Barcelona jersey.
Expected to arrive in Japan in the coming hours, the reigning Spanish champions have announced that they have been forced to cancel their scheduled match this weekend against Vissel Kobe ‘due to serious contractual breaches on behalf of the promoter’.
The latter, D-DRIVE.co, a South Korean enterprise based in Seoul, had been tasked with organising the Catalan club’s summer pre-season tour scheduled to take place in Japan and South Korea. Ham Seul, president of the company, who found herself in the spotlight, immediately sought to clarify the situation.
“The recently cancelled match between Vissel Kobe and FC Barcelona was initially proposed by the Yasuda Group, Real Sociedad’s main sponsor, and was to be co-organised locally in Japan. D-DRIVE was due to receive full payment for the match today; however, the funds did not ultimately arrive,” she explains in a statement, relayed by Sport.
“Instead, the Yasuda Group repeatedly provided invalid and falsified documents, deceiving us by claiming that the payment had already been transferred to Korea. We obtained an audio recording of a Yasuda Group employee stating that its CEO had ultimately not sent the money, clearly confirming intentional fraud.
“As a result of this fraud, Rakuten’s image has been significantly damaged. In light of these events, FC Barcelona has taken the responsible and sensible decision to cancel the match in Japan.
“We will take legal action against the Japanese entities responsible to obtain compensation for damages.
“Unlike in Japan, in Korea, the promoter prepared everything for the matches and covered all associated costs. To date, only the flight costs remain to be paid.
“To our Korean fans: rest assured. D-DRIVE remains fully committed to making the rest of the tour a success. We will do our best to deliver unforgettable performances.”
The matches against FC Seoul and Daegu FC, scheduled for 31 July and 4 August, could still go ahead, “if certain conditions are met by the promoter.”
This is a setback that the Barcelona management could certainly have done without, as they were counting on this Asian tour to further establish themselves in the local sporting landscape.
