Baku, Bureaucracy and Ballots...

Right, when are people like me the sort of what we class as old skool finally going to say enough is enough. 

Chelsea are due in Baku at the end of this month for the Europa League Final. Is Baku in Europe?

 By now most football fans know that it’s a logistical and financial nightmare to get there.  Also in the last few days hotel bookings have been cancelled, the reason being due to overbooking.......mmmm. Well more like let’s cancel these original bookings and now charge more. Don’t worry about me I rarely go domestically these days, and I did put a stop to that due to the late fixture changes to pacify the world wide TV audience.

So I’m boycotting Baku, wouldn’t get time off work and really can’t justify the only £979 offer from the club, my travelling pals have paid around £600 but going Monday – Friday.

Passports

So now the Wales issue. Croatia and Hungary are double headers at the beginning of June. The allocations are small due to small capacities and decent starts by all countries in the group. The problem now is the Hungarian FA/authorities, they require by law, that passport numbers are on the tickets and checks will be carried out. Now the Croatian FA are insisting on having passport numbers on tickets , this is the email the lucky 1100 Welsh ticket holders received today.

Thank you for purchasing tickets for the above match. As part of the safety and security procedures around this match, and in line with local regulations, additional ticket holder information is required.  

When purchasing your tickets you did not provide the passport numbers of those in your party. The HNS (Croatian Football Federation) will not issue tickets unless this information is provided. Please respond to this email with your passport number before midday on Monday 20^th May. If you have purchased more than one ticket, please also provide the passport numbers of all other ticket holders included in your order, clearly indicating which ticketholder each passport number corresponds to.

What does a passport number on a ticket do to assist with ‘As part of the safety and security procedures around this match, and in line with local regulations’ serious question, if you attend a concert, Formula 1 or any other event in Europe, do you have to provide this? I bet you don’t, my point is that it’s football fans again that are treated like well, what’s the word I’m looking for.

Ballot

Liverpool fans are now in a ballot for Champion League tickets, I’m sure that most have booked the flight which was probably, extortionate and still don’t know if they’ll get a ticket, a bloody ballot! And read this ‘LFC overall are selling 3,000 tickets to fans less than Spurs due to commercial liability /agreements with sponsors.’ You really have to despair.

Organisations

UEFA, the FA’S and football clubs in general really don’t care about the match going fan, but I know that already.

We have supporters organisations, who do their best, and put statements out condemning various issues (I’m a member of one and on one’s committee) in reality we are toothless, we really should be asking the Croats and Hungarians to explain in detail what exactly they’re after, I mean the miserable git in passport control checks your passport, you wouldn’t get into the country if there was a problem?

To be honest the Croats should have been more concerned with making sure their ground was fit for purpose instead of insisting on football fans requiring their passport numbers on a match ticket.

The end is nigh for me, I know many a fan who has stopped watching their club or country due to rule after rule or just sheer exploitation by clubs and TV companies, in reality, Arsenal and Chelsea fans should have boycotted Baku 100%, but fans will stump up the money somehow, but I know of a few Chelsea fans who are missing Baku due to the cost and logistics, now when’s the Champions League draw for next season..