{"id":27497,"date":"2025-07-27T09:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27497\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:02:09","slug":"rakuten-ceo-explains-how-barcelonas-japan-tour-issue-was-solved-hardest-task-we-have-ever-taken-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27497\/","title":{"rendered":"Rakuten CEO explains how Barcelona\u2019s Japan tour issue was solved \u2013 \u2018Hardest task we have ever taken on\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten and president of Vissel Kobe, played a major role in fixing the issues that almost led to the cancellation of Barcelona\u2019s friendly match in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The game, set to be played against Vissel Kobe, was <a href=\"https:\/\/barcauniversal.com\/official-barcelona-cancel-friendly-against-vissel-kobe-will-not-fly-to-japan-tomorrow\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:briefly suspended due to serious contract breaches;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">briefly suspended due to serious contract breaches<\/a>. But thanks to Mikitani\u2019s quick action, the situation was handled, and the match is back on schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>In a conversation with Football Zone (h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sport.es\/es\/noticias\/barca\/mikitani-explica-milagrosa-presencia-barca-120093097\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:SPORT;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">SPORT<\/a>), Mikitani opened up about how tough it was to sort everything out in time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis might have been the hardest task we\u2019ve ever taken on,\u201d he said. \u201cWe handled the flight, the logistics, everything \u2014 both directly and through connections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Calling in favours<\/p>\n<p>Mikitani explained how he used his personal and professional network to get things done. He first reached out to Gerard Pique, who helped him get in touch with Alejandro Echevarria.<\/p>\n<p>Once that connection was made, they worked on rearranging the flight that had become a major hurdle.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4c502dd5ea3f50e4ddd7fafc150df249.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Barcelona\u2019s friendly in Japan was almost canceled. (Photo by Fran Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough Pique, I spoke directly with Alejandro Echevarria and then we organised the flight again.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a friend named Tony Fernandez (CEO) of AirAsia Group, so I asked him to call the president of Korean Air and various aviation authorities to make sure that the flight could fly. Korean Air was very flexible in its response.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Payment issues and legal action<\/p>\n<p>Another problem came from a third-party developer company, which had <a href=\"https:\/\/barcauniversal.com\/full-story-the-e5m-shortfall-that-forced-barcelona-to-cancel-japan-trip-and-the-sudden-u-turn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:not paid nearly \u20ac5 million related to the event;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">not paid nearly \u20ac5 million related to the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mikitani did not go into too much detail about the money but confirmed that the matter is now being handled by lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>After meeting with Barcelona president Joan Laporta, Mikitani also shared that nearly all tickets have now been sold.<\/p>\n<p>With the situation under control, he ended on a hopeful note: \u201cNow I just hope everyone enjoys the match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten and president of Vissel Kobe, played a major role in fixing the issues&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[21808,1205,49,48,21810,21807,21806,2454,21809,561,82,21811,21805],"class_list":{"0":"post-27497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-alejandro-echevarria","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-friendly-match","13":"tag-gerard-pique","14":"tag-hiroshi-mikitani","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-rakuten","17":"tag-soccer","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tony-fernandez","20":"tag-vissel-kobe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}