Man City and Chelsea will take on each other in the Champions League final in an all-English affair and perhaps the best bit of news is that fans will be allowed inside the stadium.
Since the start of the month, football fans have been allowed inside stadiums in limited capacities across various parts of Europe and the Champions League final is also on that list.
The final had to be shifted to the FC Porto’s home ground due to the ongoing pandemic issues in Istanbul and this change means that English fans will now be able to make the journey.
Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour has already announced that he will bear a large part of the expenses for the City fans so that they are not burdened too much.
The club had announced on Tuesday: “Manchester City FC has announced that His Highness Sheikh Mansour will fund the flight and transfer costs for the Official Club trip to the Champions League Final in Porto at the end of the month.
“Thousands of City supporters will benefit from the initiative which is designed to ease the financial pressure on fans who have faced – and are still facing – challenging circumstances due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
But despite this announcement, there are bound to be major problems for both the Chelsea as well as the Manchester City fans since only 5800 tickets have been allotted per club and most of the prices are sky-high as usual.
We believe an enormous number of fans will want to travel to Portugal to see the Champions League final but with only around 12,000 tickets available, there will be a lot of broken hearts.
Here are the various ticket prices, as confirmed by Sports Illustrated:
Category 1: £515
Category 2: £386.50
Category 3: £154.50
Category 4: £60
Wheelchair: £60
Ambulant: £60
UEFA have also released travel guidelines for all the fans who wish to travel for the Champions League final.
The statement read: “Supporters should check with the UK government website on the up-to-date requirements for travel to Portugal and back to the UK.”
“UEFA have advised that all supporters should have a negative PCR test within 72 hours prior to stadium entry or negative antigen test within 48 hours prior to stadium entry.”
“Supporters will NOT be required to complete medical declaration forms.”
The Manchester City fans will only have to worry about the ticketing prices thanks to their generous owners but the Chelsea fans will have a lot more things to calculate before packing their bags for Portugal.
UPDATE:
On Wednesday evening Chelsea have also announced that they will be providing subsidised travel packages so the fans can travel to the Champions League final without too much of a burden.
The statement reads: “We will receive an allocation of approximately 5800 tickets that will go on sale first to members of the UEFA Away Scheme, and then to season ticket holders on a loyalty point basis. Should any tickets thereafter remain available, they will go on sale to members on a loyalty point basis.
“Official travel packages are available and have been subsidised by the Club to help as many Chelsea supporters as possible attend the final at short notice.”
Both the clubs are making things as easy as possible for their respective fans but we still feel that only 5,800 tickets per club is going to cause a real tussle amongst the fans and a lot of them will eventually be left broken-hearted.
