Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has questioned the validity of Champions League final ticket allocation after the club received less than 20,000 for this month’s showpiece against Real Madrid.
The Stade de France holds more than 81,000 but both clubs have received just 19,618 apiece – well below half the capacity of the ground in Paris.
There are a total of 75,000 tickets available, with 12,000 on general sale via a ballot which closed last month. Prices range from £50 to £578.
“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.
“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.”
Liverpool fans always travel in numbers and while finals are always massively over-subscribed it does not stop supporters from heading to the host city to sample the atmosphere, many in the hope of picking up a black market ticket.
When Klopp reached the Europa League final in his first season at the club he urged as many fans as possible to descend on Basel to create a party atmosphere and they duly obliged, much to the Swiss authorities’ consternation.
The German has made the same appeal for the May 28 final but he is confident Paris can cope with the influx.
“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.”
Thoughts, however, turn to domestic matters now with Tottenham the visitors on Saturday, with Liverpool having another chance to put the pressure on Manchester City by overtaking them.
“The challenge facing at Newcastle (last weekend) wasn’t an easy task, between two Villarreal (Champions League) games,” said Klopp.
“Now we have a day extra to prepare and it feels like a week’s holiday to be honest.
“The main challenge is the quality of the opponent. If you think about the way Tottenham wins, it’s a brilliant football team: Harry Kane, what a player.
“It is, for the boys, the biggest challenge we have faced for a long time”
