Arsenal and Chelsea have only been allocated 6,000 tickets each for the Europa League final in Baku on 29 May.
Azerbaijan’s Olympic Stadium, which is hosting the match, has a capacity of 68,700 meaning nearly 57,000 tickets have or will be sold, balloted or given away to other interested parties.
In a statement released soon after the Gunners 4-2 win against Valencia, the club expressed their disappointment with the situation. They also made clear they’d try and bag a few more tickets, but there’s no suggestion they will be successful. For context, we have 45,000 season ticket holders.
Arsenal also warned that travel to and from Baku, which is the best part of 3,000 miles away, will likely cost in excess of £1,000.
We’ve just checked Skyscanner and there are no direct flights available flying the day before the game and coming back the day after. The flights with stopovers tend to go via Turkey or Bahrain. Taking the stop into account, the journey is at least nine hours in each direction. Before we forget, you also need a visa to enter Azerbaijan.
Basically, it’s a logistical nightmare.
While additional flights will probably have to be laid on from London, the fact it’s school half-term and just after a bank holiday weekend means flight operators are seemingly short on planes.
Tickets are priced at £121, £78, £43 and £26. As a result of the paltry allocation, only current registered members of the Away Scheme will be guaranteed a ticket. Any remaining tickets will be sold, category by category in the usual fashion.
Mkhitaryan can’t play the final, right ?
Why not?
Conflict between armenia and the host country. (No chance I’m trying to spell it) Armenians arent aloud in. Which to be fair, is a joke of a choice for Eufa to choose this location in the first place.
Apparently fifa have said they’ll support him playing, whatever power over international politics they have.
Hopefully he’ll just stay home
Not that he’s going to be missed.
That was a pretty assist tonight. I’d like him on the bench at least, no?
Mahrez bro
Did santori want us to buy Mahrez rather than Mkhitaryan? First I’ve heard of it.
Would be gutted if I was one of the many ‘regular’ ST holders who’ve traipsed all over Europe and wont get to do the final.
UEFA are a joke- my season ticket is east upper and every EL game they give 50-100 tickets to ‘UEFA friends and family’ which inevitably find their way into the hands of the away supporters. Really shouldn’t be allowed.
So it’s an away game essentially!
I’d love if both us and Chelsea took a stand against it.
This is madness…absolute madness from UEFA!!!!!.
Absolute madness! What a fucking disgrace, why be grateful for having a European final you can look forward to when you can just moan about how it’s not played in your backyard. As if Baku was only announced yesterday as the venue.
Why have a final there.
$$$
In the immortal words of Method Man and Raekwon:
Cash Rules Everything Around Me, CREAM
Gooner connecting over old school rap. This is truly a magical night
“Old school”? Now you’re making me feel old!
Try NWA and Run DMC.
How about DJ Quik or Mobb Deep
Will be a lot cheaper watching it down the pub.
Not exactly a well thought out finals venue.
And I thought the champions league allocation was poor. It’s a real joke
Kick off is 11pm local time so game could finish around 1.30am if we need to break their hearts via penalties. Stupid location.
Didn’t UEFA sell nearly 40,000 tickets via a public ballot? That’s madness. You’re going to have a bunch of fans from teams knocked out trying to flog tickets to Arsenal and Chelsea fans in an unsegregated mass of the stadium. I can see this ending well…
Big up the fans that refer to Sanchez as “dog shagger” at the stadium. It makes me laugh and is the only real banter we got left even though people generally dont even care about Sanchez.
Its not that I like the idea of it, I just like an absurdist response to all this bullshit.
Err yeah bring on chelski
Big up puerile accusations of bestiality?
Yet more corporate contempt for football supporters.
That’s two good wins on the road in europe. Why we can’t do this domestically is beyond me… …granted we face teams with less incentive to open space bc european competition incentivices going forward…we need to be able to work out better solution on the road in PL. I think Unai wanted partially to go four at the back to add a bit more attacking asset but I think we are vulnerable to teams adept and efficient on the counter. And we get taken apart without a back 3 regardless of Mustafi or whoever. One more game in league, may… Read more »
UEFA, the best friend a ticket tout ever had…
UEFA are an enemy of the people.
Congrats on the team making the final, but absolutely ridiculous to have 2 London teams and fans just a few miles apart having to make a round trip of 5,000 miles. Crazy for climate change, the wallet and the time it will take. Hold it in Cardiff or Paris instead. Seriously.
Or Wembley?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Not Paris. Paris hasn’t been good to us in finals but yeah I would take Cardiff, but it’s what it is. Feel sorry for all those who will have to fork our an absolute fortune to watch the match. However we made it we are there hasn’t happened to many times recently but be proud to be a GOONER.
“We’re on our way, We’re on our way”
Such a total farce.
Absolute fucking piss take. Giving each club only 10% of the stadium capacity is outrageous. That’s massive slap in the face and even worse than the Champions League final share.
If the other tickets are going to charitable causes only then fair enough but we all know they won’t be.
UEFA and FIFA still stink after Blatter and Platini got booted out.
Got to love UEFA; 68k ground of which 12k will be fans. Then again, the Europa League final isn’t even being played in Europe so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise.
UEFA are just corrupt chisellers.
People saying money is the reason for having the final there but really — you’re telling me there more profit to be made from having a final in Azerbaijan than in Paris? Surely it’s more to do more with UEFA politics and giving each participating country a turn to host the final (and the politics that goes with that).
It’s about engaging with a new market that will look to spend more on tv rights.
The same as the qatar World Cup
Right, good point thanks.
Azerbaijan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranked 152 out of 180 countries by Transparency International, it’s more likely there were quite a few brown paper envelopes changing hands, or however they do it these days.
Open your eyes mate, there is no money to be gained enhancing the market in Azerbaijan.
What utter BS.. Get to the final and both teams can only bring six of their favourite supporters each.. we defintely need win this thing so we can avoid this kinda rubbish next season
Who is to say that “this kinda rubbish” won’t be visited upon the CL Final in future? The same people run the competition. If the Europa final is a financial (for UEFA) and political (for UEFA) success, why wouldn’t they seek to repeat in the other comp?
Just another example of how football has been lost to moneyed interests. Europa League final in Azerbaijan, World Cup in Qatar, oil states running the game now. Football must be one of the most environmentally destructive sports around these days, perhaps 2nd only to F1.
Still, I will watch the game because we will smash those cunts.
UEFA the new FIFA?