West Ham to get awful 25% of Europa League final tickets if they get there
Should West Ham United beat Eintracht Frankfurt over two legs to reach the Europa League final, they will be given far less tickets than they should.
The chief football writer for The Times, Henry Winter, reported via his personal Twitter account that each of this year’s finalists would receive just 10,000 tickets for the game.
That is only 25% each of the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan’s capacity with the other 50% going to “fans worldwide, local organisers, Uefa, national associations, commercial partners, broadcasters & hospitality.”
While some tickets do need to be made available for sponsors and commercial partners, dignitaries and all that jazz, the rest should all go to supporters of each club.
To have 13,000 tickets going to anyone who can get their mitts on one is such a bizarre decision and the percentages are so far gone from what they should be.
It isn’t exactly a surprise that UEFA are looking to cash in at every opportunity rather than give the genuine fans the allocation they rightfully deserve.
That number could easily be reduced to 3,00 if they are insistent on giving any football fan the chance to go to the final and that would then open up another 5,00 tickets for each set of supporters which is a lot closer to what they should have received in the first place.
It is just abhorrent behaviour from UEFA to only make 25% of the 40,000 seater stadium available to each set of supporters and West Ham will sell that out in seconds if they make it to Seville.
Should they be finalists, they will at least have the edge over their opponents having already played in Seville earlier in the knockout stages but the club needs to protest these awful ticket percentages if they make it all the way to the final.
In other West Ham news, the club are going to take “significant” and “enhanced” action for their semi-final after what happened in the last round.
Be sure to follow West Ham Zone on Facebook for 24/7 updates on the Hammers plus more exclusive interviews with Frank McAvennie.