WITH THIS YEAR’S Champions League final pairing now known, fans of Liverpool and Tottenham will be already frantically planning for the showdown next month. The Wanda Metropolitano, home of Atletico Madrid, will host the All-Premier League affair on Saturday, 1 June as the sides look to become the first English club to be crowned champions of Europe since Chelsea in 2012. Reopened in September 2017, the stadium holds 67,804 but it has been announced that both clubs will be allocated just 16,1613 tickets each. The pricing will be divided up as follows: 5% – Category 1: £513 (€595) – Category 1: £513 (€595) 21% – Category 2: £385 (€446) – Category 2: £385 (€446) 54% – Category 3: £154 (€178) – Category 3: £154 (€178) 20% – Category 4: £60 (€70) There are also a limited amount of restricted view tickets at slightly cheaper rates, while Liverpool have revealed that they will have 100 adult/junior combined tickets priced at £120 (€140). The clubs also receive 300 top category tickets each for players’ allocation, Uefa Youth League team players, club staff and VIPs. The remaining tickets are allocated to the local organising committee, Uefa and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters, while Uefa announced today that they have already sold the first 4,000 tickets to fans worldwide via Uefa.com. While the Spanish capital is considerably easier to get to than last year’s host city Kiev or Istanbul — where Liverpool lifted the Champions League trophy in 2005 — inflated flight fares and limited tickets mean many who are planning to attend will inevitably be left disappointed. Subscribe to our new podcast, The42 Rugby Weekly, here:<doc-sep>Tickets to the Champions League final between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool are expensive, even at face value. To that end supporters unions from both clubs had recently issued a joint statement asking their clubs to help offset the cost of tickets for fans who are making the trip to Madrid for the match. Today, Tottenham Hotspur rejected that call, saying that it would not help subsidize the costs of the tickets for traveling fans, though it has raised the price of tickets with UEFA. The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust (THST) and Spirit of Shankly (SOS) released a statement in the past few days noting the high cost of tickets and travel to see the clubs play at the highest level of club football, criticized the “measly” number of allocated tickets for supporters, and asking that the clubs help fans attend, since it as on the backs of loyal supporters that the clubs have progressed this far. Tottenham, through a statement on the THST’s website, acknowledged the significant financial obstacles presented to supporters who wish to attend the match at the Wanda Metropolitano, but argued that subsidizing ticket prices will not do anything to prevent current and future ticket price increases for such events in the future. “As you are aware UEFA set both the allocation and the prices. We acknowledge that these prices, along with the inflated flight and hotel prices, represent significant costs for fans. “We have and we would urge you to do so too, raised both ticket prices and the limited allocation with UEFA in the hope that future competitions can be priced more reasonably and made more widely accessible. “For the game in hand however we do not feel it is appropriate for us to subsidise ticket prices, not least because it would remove any incentive for competition organisers to price sensibly in the future. “Both yourselves and Spirit of Shankly have ensured that the issues of allocation and pricing have been aired and the hope must be that future competitions acknowledge fan sentiments.” Supporters organizations like THST and SOS represent the fans who attend matches, and so it is wholly appropriate for them to express displeasure with the price of football and ask for some assistance from the club. Just getting to Madrid is extortionately expensive, much less finding a way into the Wanda on June 1. I’m sympathetic to the fan organizations that continue to work to make sure that fans aren’t left behind as football becomes a more and more lucrative business enterprise. However, the club didn’t set ticket prices for the Champions League final — UEFA did. Therefore, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me that the club should spend what could be hundreds of thousands of pounds to offset the price of the 16,000 seats allocated to the club’s supporters. In addition, attending a high profile sporting event such as a Champions League final is always going to be an expensive proposition; the tickets are the least of it, with hotels and flights currently significantly more money than they would otherwise. It seems a bit odd that the fans who are wealthy enough to be able to afford the travel and accommodations in Madrid around a major European final would cry poverty with regards to ticket prices. The THST went on to say on their website that they were pleased to see the club acknowledge the financial burden on fans wanting to attend, and that they also agreed to push back the 2019-20 season ticket application deadline to the end of June, which will help fans with the financial burden. In this situation, the burden for what to do about rising ticket prices at its events falls to UEFA, and thus far it doesn’t seem as though they are willing to forego a huge cash cow in order to appease fans who are priced out of attending. Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be much that UEFA or the clubs can do to prevent airlines and local businesses from raising prices for flights and hotels. But while I don’t feel like that’s Tottenham’s responsibility either, that’s small comfort for Spurs fans, many of whom aren’t able to afford what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch their club lift a Champions League trophy in person.<doc-sep>
UEFA respond to criticism over ticket allocations UEFA have defended their decision to award just 45, 226 tickets to fans for the finals of both the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Arsenal will take on Chelsea in the Europa League final in Baku on the 29th of May while Liverpool will play Tottenham in the Champions League final in Madrid on the 1st of June. 12,000 tickets have been allocated to fans for the Europa League final with the Baku Olympic Stadium seating 68,700 at capacity while Liverpool and Tottenham fans have been allocated just 16,613 tickets each for the Champions League final at the 68,000-capacity Estadio Metropolitano stadium. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino have both condemned the measly allocations and UEFA responded to the final in Baku by claiming that they cannot account for demand from fans before the final. A UEFA statement reads: "Based on UEFA's recent experience with UEFA Europa League finals and the UEFA Super Cup in comparable venues, the number of finalists' supporters requesting tickets for a UEFA Europa League final can vary greatly from club to club. "Of course, it is impossible to predict in advance which clubs will reach the final, while the venue has to be chosen around two years in advance. "Taking into consideration the above and, most importantly, the geographical location and logistical capacity of airports in and around the host city, it was deemed that around 15,000 spectators would be able to travel from abroad. "Offering more tickets to fans of the participating teams, without any guarantee that they would be able to arrange suitable travel to reach Baku, was therefore not a responsible option. "Based on these circumstances, for this year's UEFA Europa League final in Baku, 6,000 tickets have been made available to each of the finalists. "UEFA remains in close contact with the finalists regarding the travel arrangements of their supporters and any other operational aspects with regards to the final." Meanwhile, with regards to the Champions League final in Madrid, UEFA claim that the remaining 25,500 tickets at the Estadio Metropolitano stadium have been put aside for the local organising committee, UEFA and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters, and to serve the corporate hospitality programme. 'A total of 38,000 tickets out of 63,500 (the stadium’s capacity for the final) are available for fans and the general public to purchase. The two teams who reach the final will receive 17,000 each, while 4,000 tickets are being offered for sale to fans worldwide via UEFA.com. 'The remaining tickets are allocated to the local organising committee, UEFA and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters, and to serve the corporate hospitality programme with new packages available'.