Chelsea SEND BACK 800 unsold Champions League final tickets
Chelsea SEND BACK 800 unsold Champions League final tickets with fans not buying their £200 day-trip packages – after Man City owner Sheik Mansour paid for their supporters to travel to Porto for FREE
- Chelsea have had to return hundreds of unsold Champions League final tickets
- Supporters have not bought the £200 day-trip packages offered by the club
- Fans who bought the package will have to pay for tickets and Covid testing
- Manchester City, meanwhile, have paid for their fans to travel to Porto for free
Chelsea have returned over 800 unsold tickets for their Champions League final against Manchester City in Porto, with fans not buying the ‘subsidised’ £200 packages.
Tickets on general sale have all sold out but Chelsea have not managed to get rid of all of the 3,000 they had held back as part of their charter package.
Chelsea were offering fans official day trips, worth £200 per person plus the cost of the match ticket, with the flights subsidised by the club.
Chelsea have returned 800 unsold Champions League final tickets after fans didn’t buy day-trip packages
Chelsea play Manchester City in the showpiece match in Portugal this weekend
However, they have now had to return hundreds of tickets after the package deal proved to be unpopular among supporters.
It is understood that being restricted to less than 24 hours in Porto and Covid were key reasons why almost a third of those tickets failed to sell.
Unlike Manchester City, who have paid for their fans’ travel and Covid testing, Chelsea did not offer to cover the costs for match-going fans’ tests and were only subsidising part of supporters’ travel to the final.
Chelsea Supporter Trust board member Dan Silver blamed the ticket saga on UEFA’s insistence on offering a charter package.
Chelsea fans who bought the package would only have part of their travel subsidised
Man City owner Sheikh Mansour (centre) has paid for travel and Covid test for their fans
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL TICKET PRICES
Category 1: £515
Category 2: £386.50
Category 3: £154.50
Category 4: £60
Wheelchair: £60
Ambulant: £60
He said: ‘UEFA’s lack of care for fans has again come to the fore.
‘They came to be our friends over the European Super League but now they have turned their backs on us again.
‘UEFA’s insistence on having charter flights – initially linked to 90 per cent of tickets, which the clubs pushed back on – spending only 24 hours in Portugal with added Covid testing and additional costs have made it very prohibitive.
‘Selling tickets for up to 400 euros for a limited access final with unnecessary travel is outrageous when there were obvious solutions closer to home.’
UEFA has been criticised for its pricing policy, with tickets starting at £60 and rising to as much as £515 for category 1 seating.
Supporters from both clubs are due to arrive in Portugal on Saturday with a strict plan in place to escort them to the stadium and back to the airport.
Fans will arrive on a chartered flight and be kept in a Covid bubble, spending less than 24 hours overall in the country while they will also need to provide a negative PCR test 72 hours before entering the Estadio do Dragao and then a negative antigen test within 48 hours before entering the stadium, as per UEFA guidelines.
Portuguese authorities confirmed on Tuesday that they will allow 16,500 to attend the final at the Estadio do Dragao. That number equates to 33 per cent of the stadium’s 50,000 capacity.
Chelsea and Manchester City were both allocated 6,000 tickets each while 1,700 went on sale to the general public earlier this week.
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