Borussia Dortmund has reached the final of the Champions League at Wembley. The club is entitled to 25,000 tickets for its fans – and they will be expensive. There is a dispute over the distribution of tickets for the Europa League final.
The distribution of cards has been causing discontent for years. This year the proportion of fans of the participating clubs in the Champions League is at least higher than before – but there are discussions with a view to the final of the Europa League.
Champions League: More tickets for the teams – but it will be expensive
The final of the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund as well as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich will take place on June 1st in Wembley, there are 86,000 seats here. Each team gets 25,000 tickets for their fans, so the 50,000 tickets correspond to 58 percent of the seats – in Paris in 2022 it was 53 percent, in Istanbul in 2023 it was 56 percent. 10,000 tickets will go on public sale, while a share of 26,600 tickets will remain with UEFA.
Share of tickets final participants (source: UEFA) Tournament 2022 2023 2024 Champions League 53% 56% 58% Europa League 50% 48% 50% Conference League 40% 56% 66%
The prices: For many fans it will be in the high three figures
If fans even have the opportunity to buy a ticket, it can be expensive. The cheapest category is only available to a few fans, after that it goes deep into the three-digit range.
Ticket prices UEFA finals (in euros) Competition Cat. 4 Cat. 3 Cat. 2 Cat. 1 Champions League* 70 187 502 712 Europa League 40 65 100 150 Conference League 25 45 85 125 Women’s CL 15 20 25 45
*converted from British pounds to euros. There is also a premium category (not VIP), in which seats on the center line cost more than four times as much as category 1: 3,390 euros.
The final of the Champions League was recently a point of contention when it came to card distribution. Demand from fans is particularly high here, but also from partners, sponsors, media and officials. Before the final in Paris 2022, Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp criticized UEFA’s ticket allocation: “Only 20,000 for us and they (Real Madrid, editor) also get 20,000?” With a view to the stadium’s total capacity of 75,000, the Liverpool FC coach added the question: “Where are these tickets?”
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin later reminded Klopp that a large part of the contingent for sponsors and partners ends up with the people who finance the salaries of the players and coaches.
Dispute over the Europa League: Only 50 percent of the tickets for fans of the participants
There are currently more discussions about the Europa League final. 48,000 people fit into the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. The final is scheduled to take place here on May 22nd. UEFA announced that the two finalists will each receive 12,000 tickets for their fans. A further 12,000 go into general public advance sales, and another 12,000 remain with UEFA – for example for sponsors, media, partners and officials.
The Aviva Stadium in Dublin is the venue for the Europa League final
The European fan alliance Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said in a statement on April 11 that it was “seriously concerned” that only 50 percent of the stadium’s total capacity would be made available to fans of the two participating teams.
Fan alliance demands higher allocation of tickets for fans of the two clubs
“FSE calls on UEFA and local organizers to increase these allocations,” it said. FSE requires at least two thirds of the tickets for the fans of the two clubs that are playing. However, UEFA is not solely responsible.
In addition to UEFA, the local security authorities also have a say in the allocation and measures to separate fan groups. UEFA pointed this out on April 12th in a response to a request from Sportschau. There were “detailed discussions with the local authorities” in which “the organizational processes and the intended access routes for fans to their respective blocks” were discussed. The result: a maximum of 12,000 tickets each will go to the two clubs in the final. According to information from Sportschau, there has been no movement on the matter so far.
In 2022 in Seville there were also only 50 percent of the tickets available for fans of Eintracht Frankfurt and Glasgow Rangers, there were 10,000 each.
Conference League: Big part for the fans, but a small stadium
For the final of the Conference League, UEFA meets the requirement that two thirds of the tickets go to the fans of the participating teams. The final will take place on May 29th at the Agia Sofia Stadium in Athens. 27,100 fans can fit in here, this time the participating fans will get 9,000 tickets each, significantly more than last time.
The Agia Sofia Stadium in Athens, venue for the Conference League final
There has been a different problem with the Conference League in recent years: UEFA usually chose small stadiums. The introduction of the Conference League for the 2021/22 season offered the opportunity to also enable smaller associations to host European finals. But big clubs with large supporters usually play in the final.
In 2022, the first final took place in Tirana, Albania, and there were only 4,000 tickets for the two participants in the 20,000-seat stadium. However, AS Roma and Feyenoord Rotterdam each brought a large following with them. Just under 20,000 people could also fit into the Eden Stadium in Prague for the final in 2023 – only 5,000 tickets were planned for the fans of West Ham United and AC Fiorentina.
Women’s Champions League: Bilbao stadium sold out
The final of the Women’s Champions League will take place in Bilbao at the Estadio de San Mames. There are more than 50,000 seats there – the stadium is already sold out, says UEFA.
The final is one of the last Corona consequences in football: It was part of an agreement after UEFA Bilbao withdrew from hosting games in the men’s European Championship in 2021 because the Corona requirements in the Basque Country were too strict. The games took place in Seville.