Uefa could restrict Champions League final to only a few mega stadiums under new plans
UEFA CHIEF Aleksander Ceferin is considering ring-fencing Champions League finals to a handful of big stadiums across Europe.
Liverpool and Tottenham fans were angry they were only allocated 16,000 tickets each in Atletico Madrid’s 68,000-seater Wanda Metropolitano for the recent final.
The tournament is moved around the continent every year but Europe’s governing body are planning to use only the biggest venues.
Ceferin said: “What is my thinking now is we should play the finals in bigger stadiums even if we go to the same places, the same four or five places all the time.
“I’m talking about the Champions League only because it is the top of the top event.
“For example for Madrid we had 980,000 requests.
“So even if we’d play in Wembley we would have 30,000 more. It would change something.
“Probably a top, top, top event should be played only at the top venues. Hotel-wise, mobility-wise, stadium-wise.
“But the Europa League and everything else should be shared with the others who love football.”
Ceferin, a former criminal lawyer, was speaking in Oxford in the Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre at the Saïd Business School.
The 51-year-old, who was re-elected in February for a second term until 2023, spoke to a room of students and post-graduates about his vision for European football.
He defended the decision to play the Europa League final between Chelsea and Arsenal in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, which the Blues won 4-1.
Many fans couldn’t attend the final because of logistic and travelling nightmares and the lack of hotels.
Ceferin said: “Whenever we have English clubs, whenever we have complaints they’re mad (about something).
“You don’t help yourself in the popularity within European football with that.
“If somebody asks me why we played in Baku I’d say: ‘People live there.’ Homosapiens live there.
“They had to watch the game at 11pm because of the time difference but no-one complained.
“If we have two Azzuri teams playing in London nobody would complain.
“And we decided a year-and-a-half ago that we’d play in Baku which has a modern stadium of 70,000. I think there is only one stadium in England that is bigger.
“So you should see the happiness, the humbleness of people when they see live the superstars that they like.
“We have to develop football everywhere not England and Germany only. In the past Shakhtar Donetsk and Zenit St Petersburg made the final.
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“What if that had happened? I can tell you nobody would complain. They would come to London and play without any problems.”
Arsenal’s Armenian star Henrikh Mkhitaryan decided against travelling for safety reasons because of the tension between his homeland and neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Ceferin said: “We got absolute all the guarantees of the government of Azerbaijan. But his decision was not to travel. I respect that. But it was safe for the player to travel.”