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ECHO feature writer and Kop season ticket holder Tony Barrett....

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Ticket shambles

Posted by Tony Barrett on May 11, 2007 3:29 PM | 

I should be buzzing today.
Liverpool are in the European Cup final and I'm guaranteed a ticket.
But the truth is all the joy I should be experiencing has been taken away by the kind of scandal which has been blighting football for far too long.

As usual, the sacndal is UEFA inspired. An allocation of 17,000 tickets for such a massive game is an absolute joke.
As usual, European football's ruling body has put corpratism ahead of the needs of genuine fans (should we ever have expected anything else?).
And, as usual, ordinary fans faced being ripped off by touts if they want to see one of the biggest games of their lives.
But, what no-one was expected was for UEFA's perennial indifference to be exacerbated by a ticketing distribution system which has pushed some of Liverpool's most loyal supporters onto the outside looking in.
For this, Liverpool Football Club must take its share of the blame.
A single decision they made back in August to emphasise the loyalty of those who attend Champions League games at Anfield has ensured far, far too many people who are the lifeblood of that club will now not be in Athens.
People like Dave Kirby and Nicky Allt. Most people know them as the writers of the smash hit comedy Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels.
But I know them as two of the biggest Liverpool supporters you could ever wish to meet.
They must have been to more than 3,000 games between them and not just your big cup finals. The stories they can tell are the kind that make you wish you'd been with them when they were travelling England and Europe supporting their beloved Reds.
Nicky is so loyal he once went to a pre-season friendly in Africa where he was the only Liverpool fan to have made the trip and the players couldn't believe their eyes when they saw him.
Of course, they've been at pretty much every game at Anfield during the last season and most away games too. But was this enough to get them a ticket for the final? Was it hell.
How about the fella I know only as John, who phones me in work every week just in case I might know something about his beloved Reds that he hasn't already heard.
Yesterday, John rang me again. Only this time it wasn't for a bit of banter or a laugh, it was because he was totally heartbroken at having missed out on a ticket in the ballot.
He told me he's been to 43 of Liverpool's 50 games so far this season and since he started following the club as a kid he has never missed a single final - that means he's been to a mind boggling 27 finals.
Despite this, Liverpool FC, or rather their controversial ballot system, decreed John was not deserving of a ticket this time.
He could point out that he has been to away games in the Champions League but it doesn't matter because they were not registered on his fan card.
John applied for tickets for PSV, the first away game, but missed out, again in a ballot.
Missing out there meant he never had the initialy loyalty needed to get tickets from the club for the remaining away games and the end result was that in the lottery for final tickets he officially had as much chance of getting a ticket as someone who has been to just six games at Anfield in their entire lives.
And it is here that the ballot system really falls down.
How can the loyalty of someone who has been to only six matches ever be equal to that of someone who has barely missed a Liverpool game in their whole life?
The club say they are rewarding loyalty built up in the Champions League this season. But, let's be honest, going to six showpiece occasions over an eight month period doesn't require much in the way of loyalty does it?
Loyalty is going to Portsmouth and Fulham away when there's nothing at stake; getting your season ticket every year regardless of how much they have gone up and how skint you are; making your way to places in Europe you've never even heard of to support your team even though you haven't got a ticket.
Dave, Nicky and John have all displayed this kind of loyalty and yet, when it came to doling out tickets for the European Cup final, it was rendered meaningless by a ticketing system which stacked the odds against them.
For this Liverpool FC must take their share of the blame.
Genuine fans expect to be shafted by UEFA. But we should be able to expect that our club will do its level best to do right by us.
In this case that certainly hasn't happened and for that reason I can't even begin to think of enjoying the build up to the European Cup Final.
Not while lads like Dave, Nicky and John are on the outside looking in.


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Comments (1)

andrew sanders wrote...

This article is right on the button.

It's too late for this final's allocation but this debacle cannot be forgotten.

It's obvious that the club has huge commitments to sponsors and corporate "supporters" and these have taken thousands of tickets which should have been in the ballot. The club should be trying to reduce these commitments for future years and should certainly not increase them in connection with the new stadium or that really will be the end of the "Twelth Man" at big games.

A full disclosure of commitments would be a good first step.

Posted by: andrew sanders  | May 14, 2007 5:11 PM

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