Liverpool fans looking forward to witnessing their team play in a Europa League final this season should probably make plans for watching the match (should Liverpool overcome Villareal in the semi-finals, that is) in the pub or at home as the amount of tickets they are to receive for the final at Basel's St Jakob-Park is pitifully low.
While Basel's ground may be a perfectly fine football stadium, it's suitability as the host of a major European final is questionable, given that the capacity of the ground is only 35,000 - a figure which ensures the supporters of the clubs who reach the final will only be allocated 9,000 tickets.
If the Reds are successful in defeating Villareal over two legs, one of Shakhtar Donetsk or four time tournament champions Sevilla await in Switzerland on Wednesday, May 18th.
To put the paltry amount of tickets on offer to the finalists into context, Liverpool have 27,000 season ticket holders and sold 32,000 tickets for their Capital One Cup final against Manchester City, earlier this season. Nine thousand tickets have already been allocated to neutral supporters, which further highlights the ineptitude of so many people working at UEFA, that they actually think it's a good idea to reward people who are fans of neither finalist with almost a third of the available tickets for a match of such magnitude.
The remaining 8,000 seats for the final will go to the "local organising committee, national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters, and to serve the corporate hospitality programme". So between them and the neutrals, that's 17,000 tickets that could have been sold to fans of the clubs involved in the match that have gone elsewhere. What a fucking joke..
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