MY ACCOUNT
Aleksander Ceferin has defended UEFA’s allocation of Champions League final tickets following criticism from Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.
The Stade de France has a capacity of 75,000, but less than 20,000 tickets apiece will be allocated to Reds and Real Madrid fans for the showdown on May 28.
Liverpool manager Klopp made his feelings about that perfectly clear after his side beat Villarreal at the semi-final stage.
He said: “It is absolutely not right, but it happens everywhere. It doesn’t make it better, just in this specific case you are not only paying more than last time for a ticket, but you only get 50 per cent of the tickets and the rest goes to people who pay thousands and thousands for the tickets.”
Klopp added: “When you see the ticket prices and all this kind of stuff, the amount of tickets you get only… did I read, is it right that we only get 20,000, they get 20,000, [but] 75,000 in? That makes 35,000, what? Where are these tickets?
“I cannot be more appreciative, more thankful for what [the fans] are doing. Unbelievable… It is the only bad thing about the journey [fans struggling to obtain tickets]. I really hope they all can make it somehow and can create an incredible atmosphere.
“That is what I love about this game, really. The world will be red or white, but everybody will be either or, so that’s really cool.”
UEFA president Ceferin responded by stating that the system works.
He said: I explained the same thing to one of the coaches of the two teams [Liverpool and Madrid] a couple of days ago and I can do it here. I explained it to him a bit more and took much more time because I went through every single number.
“From the revenues from the finals, UEFA gets 6.5 per cent and 93.5 per cent goes to the clubs. From the other matches 100 per cent of the revenues goes to the clubs.
“Fans of both teams get 20,000 tickets each. If sponsors that pay 100 or more million euros sponsorship – of which 93.5 per cent goes to the same clubs – get some tickets, it’s part of a contractual obligation that we have.
“UEFA doesn’t get more tickets than the others. Some tickets go to the market, some tickets go to the fans and some go to the partners. It’s not UEFA. I’m not giving tickets for free to my friends or selling to my friends.
“It’s the system that works, and clubs couldn’t function differently. For us, not much will change if all the tickets will be €10, but it will change a lot for the clubs. A lot.”
