Jurgen Klopp has questioned why only half of the Stade De France will be occupied by supporters of Liverpool and Real Madrid when the two side’s meet in the Champions League final on May 28.
The stadium in the Saint-Denis area of Paris has a capacity of 80,000 seats but travelling Kopites and Madridistas have received a ticket allocation of just 19,618 each.
The face value price of match tickets will set you back anything from £50 to £578 and the German is bemused as to where the rest of the tickets go.
“Now when you see the ticket prices and all that kind of stuff, the amount of tickets you get… is it right that we only get 20,000, they get 20,000 and there’s 75,000 in?” said Klopp (via The 42).
“That makes 35,000 (left over) what?? Where are these tickets (going)?
“The tickets are really expensive and I cannot be more appreciative or more thankful of what the people are doing.”
Thousands of supporters, most of them without a ticket, will head to the French capital in three weeks time in order to sample the atmosphere and try their luck at finding a ticket somehow.
Back in 2016 when we reached our first European final under Klopp, the 54-year-old urged as many Liverpool fans as possible to travel to Basel where the final was being hosted.
Swiss authorities were concerned that the country wouldn’t cope with the influx of supporters, but Klopp has confirmed that he’s confident that Paris can.
He was also keen to thank Reds fans for their incredible support and believes even in games away from home, the travelling Kop have a hugely positive impact on his team.
“I hope they all can make it somehow and can create – of course they will – an incredible atmosphere. It’s nice,” he added.
“If you don’t get a ticket – I don’t want to invite people to Paris but this time it’s big enough and I did this last time for Basel in Switzerland and it was ‘Oops’.
“But I think Paris is big enough to go there without a ticket and have a good time, behave yourself but be in the best possible mood.
“These kind of things are a great thing and if you can’t go there then watch it here in any kind of surrounding, it will be absolutely fantastic.
“It’s difficult to get there and whoever followed us all the time or only one time I can only say ‘thank you very much, you have made it really special’.
“Wherever we were, they made it our ground. The boys won all the away games in this campaign which is absolutely incredible because we had so much support where we were.”
Although we don’t expect the governing body to make any changes either now or in the future, it’s great to see that the club are making their opinion heard.
Fans are being priced out of the game once again and their importance is rapidly being forgotten about.