Notes from an Europa League Final

Part I – A Gozitan Juventus Fan in the Yankees’ Court

The last big sporting event I had attended involved lots of merchandising, an incredible amount of food and drink, a massive stadium full of families, a team with a glorious history and, oh, the sport – something about bats, balls, diamonds and strikes. Thousands of fans were at the Yankee Stadium that day to watch Jeter and Co. go through the motions once again so that they may then crunch the numbers and stats on their way out through the official merchandising shops.

That time match had been rescheduled since the first time round it was “rained out”. That meant that we got the opportunity to queue at a ticketing booth and witness the elaborate but mostly efficient commercial transactions between fans, official team ticket staff and the invisible but very present Stubhub. It was like going to the stock exchange – in the US sites such as Stubhub that serve for the buying and selling of tickets between fans are part and parcel of the goings on. A fan becomes an able commercial transactor – and the wheeling and dealing becomes very much part of being a fan. Nothing seemed wrong there.

Nothing was wrong at all. All tickets were exchanged, rightful owners of tickets who could not attend on the rescheduled day were given different tickets for different days – some negotiated for bunches of tickets including the mysterious “bleachers”, others were content to watch the game that evening. A breeze. Really and truly. We walked out happy with our new tickets and proceeded to watch what I can only subjectively define as a very boring game staged in a magnificent family atmosphere. We stayed as long as we could resist the freezing temperatures having been obliged to buy warm covers to wrap ourselves in.

Part II – “Stasera spacchiamo tutto in citta” (tifoso Benfica)

This time round I was waiting at Gate G of the fantastic Juventus Stadium, surrounded by a mass of excited Benfica and Sevilla fans on the way to witness the 2014 Europa League final. I was there because I had purchased the ticket back in April when Juventus were still in the run, on the eve of a return leg against Lyon. Atheists would call this overconfidence – I call it faith… faith in your team that is the ultimate building block for fandom worldwide. Real fans, they believe. Sadly faith does not always combine with fate and notwithstanding having outshone the portuguese upstarts over two legs Juventus quit the scene at the semifinal stage with the odd goal in three having gone Benfica’s way.

I had a slight problem though. It was staring back at me from my ticket. Twice. There, branded into the ticket officially issued by UEFA right under the price of 150 euro were the words CHOY WAI SHING. Written (for security’s sake) twice – once at the top of the ticket and once at the bottom. That, my friends, was supposed to be the name of the holder of the ticket. Now I consider myself lucky enough to be able to pass myself off as a person coming from a variety of nationalities  all of which have one thing in common – the Mediterranean basin. I can claim to come from anywhere within the range that goes from the Pillars of Hercules all the way to the ports of Tyre and Sidon passing through Rome, Tirana, Marseilles, Algiers, Tripoli, Alexandria and Rhodes. But Choy Wai Shing? Not even with my current hairstyle that is half way to that of a Supreme Korean Leader will I manage that.

I am not alone. Like me there are hundreds, nay thousands, of fans from both sides who are in possession of tickets that very evidently do not have their name on them. It is the result of a new UEFA directive, supposedly coming after complaints by Chelsea fans last year who had to pay exorbitant prices to watch the final. I saw Portuguese with names such as “Peter Coombes” or “Paolo Venditti” on their ticket. At this point we had already tried our luck once. We had all gone to the turnstile and shown our ticket to the steward together with our identity documents. Each one of us had been sent back – refused – even though some of us, like myself, could produce evidence of the transaction that had led to the official purchase of the tickets. The rule was simple – your name is not on the ticket, you are not going in.

Which is why approximately one hour before the game was supposed to start I was having an interesting conversation with two Italian-speaking Benfica fans. “E ridiculo (sic) Se non fanno entrare tutto questa gente noi andiamo giu e spacchiamo tutta la citta”. Let it be known that this was said to me as I was squashed in a growing crowd of refused fans all pressing towards a gate that would not open. It was not just fans of Benfica. I also spoke to Sevilla fans who were in the same predicament. It was not surprising really – anybody could have predicted this.

Part III – Viagogo is a scam

The moment you are sandwiched between portuguese and spanish fans bellowing and belching their anger at everyone and everything your brain begins to distract itself by drawing up a quick hit list of persons and companies that are to be blamed for the current tense situation. Back in April, before the tickets were issued by UEFA I was sure that Juventus would make it to the final. They had to. It would be staged in their own stadium. I was told that the best way to get a ticket was by using Viagogo – an intermediary site that claims to “buy and sell” tickets for major events.

I logged onto their site and found a Category One ticket for the final at a not too moderate price of four hundred seventy euros (470). I reckoned two things – first that it was a fair price to pay for guaranteed tickets for a European Final (that same reckoning would allow up to 1,000 for a Champions’ League). Secondly I reckoned that, given the laws of the market, the price would rise as the final got closer (I would be right on that count). I was totally unaware of the possibility of registering oneself for a draw by UEFA for tickets that would cost 150 euro at this point.

What Viagogo does not tell you at the point of purchase – even though they are fully aware of it – is the following. They do not tell you that at that point they are not in possession of any ticket. They do not tell you that they will be “obtaining” the ticket at a later date when someone will be trying to get rid of his ticket because his team has not made it to the final. Most of all they do not tell you that your name will not be on the ticket – just that of the random unfortunate who wants to offload a ticket that has become useless for his purposes.

You will receive a number of emails following the purchase telling you that it is normal for Viagogo to have tickets sent very close to the event. The excuse they mention is that the tickets are issued very late. In my case it was extremely late. Thanks to a very unhelpful ‘customer care’ system I almost ended up with no ticket at all since the ticket only got to Luxembourg when I was already in Turin. On two different occasions I spoke to customer care reps from Viagogo and specifically requested that my name be on the ticket. On both occasions I was told by Viagogo that the name would not be on the ticket but that it would not be a problem because “UEFA cannot refuse everybody who has an official ticket”.

Part IV – UEFA does not help

But they did. Or at least they tried to do so for a very long time. We became pawns in a power match between UEFA and intermediaries such as Viagogo and the ticket touts. UEFA’s idea of control was to issue the tickets some time around the semifinals and make them nominative – that is strictly linked to the purchaser and non-transferable. The supposed inspiration behind all this is quite sound – keep prices low for fans. It’s a crap way of doing so though.

In the first place this system requires tickets to be issued at an early stage – sometime around the semi-final. That means that you will have at least 50% of the purchasers holding a ticket that they no longer need (for the pagans among you that figure covers the supporters of the two losing semifinalists). By UEFA rules they are not allowed to sell their ticket to anybody else. Ridiculo!

Also if for some reason you have purchased a ticket and suddenly something crops up and you can no longer go then you are lumped with a useless purchase (a UEFA issued ticket cost a fixed price of 150 euros). I met someone who had two tickets from another couple who had to pass on the match because the wife had just given birth. That’s 300 euros of wasted cash should UEFA not allow the ticket to be reused. If you think that these figures might be small and insignificant just think that on the day that the stadium was officially sold out (Juventus Stadium Capacity is at 41,000) the official attendance figure was 33,000. That’s 8,000 unused tickets Monsieur Platini… how’s that for sport?

Part V – Bela Guttmann wins

So what happened? Did I see the match? Well. What happened is this. It became obvious that what Juventus Stadium had on its hands was a mass of dedicated supporters prepared to turn into a mob. As more and more fans got refused entry the stewards suddenly communicated that they were speaking to their superiors to see what could be done. Even the stewards understood the ridiculous nature of the situation.

Meanwhile the fans were trying ingenious ways of getting in. Some ingenious portuguese decided to take UEFA’s rule literally. One guy got a felt tip pen and cancelled out the name on the ticket replacing it with his own. Some absent-minded steward let him in. This led to a rush for pens (I joined this one) and we all got back to the turnstile. No chance. We were refused once again after having been reminded that tickets were non-transferable.

That was the point when I feared the worst. In my mind I had a panic run-through of major football disasters involving uncontrollable crowds. There was a possibility of a rush on the gates but thankfully the crowd seemed much more decent for the moment. The tension did work as a huge eye opener as to how an administrative cock up can lead to tragic consequences – think Heysel, think Hillsborough. It only gets worse when while you are waiting you see the corporate ticket holders walking up to the steward and being allowed in after they are asked to write their name on the ticket. I had never heard of Hankook Tires before and I will never purchase them after this. (Yes, Hankook and HTC were two corporate sponsors with a heavy presence).

So while some of the hotter-headed Benfica fans threatened to do an Attila on Torino and while some Sevilla supporters brought out their repertoire of italian insults the clock was ticking and we were getting closer to missing the final and losing out on loads of money. Then it happened. A steward got the nod. “Let them in” was the order. One last mob crush and we were through the gates.

The rest, as Bela Guttmann would have it, is history.