Manchester United are to subsidise the £102 cost for a ticket at Barcelona for the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final and have taken a “difficult decision” to charge the same price for Barcelona supporters at Old Trafford.
This makes it the most expensive United ticket outside of a final, with the club explaining they will use the extra revenue from the first leg on 10 April to lower the price for their fans travelling to Barcelona on 16 April, bringing down the cost of the ticket to £75.
“We believe that our travelling supporters are again being subjected to increased/excessive ticket prices from the host club,” a statement on United’s website said. “We have again taken the difficult decision to charge Barcelona fans the same amount Barcelona are charging for the away fixture (£102). We will use the additional revenue gained to subsidise our travelling support by paying the £27 price difference.”
United have been allocated 4,610 standard tickets for the match in Barcelona. All tickets are currently sold out, although there will be a second ballot for away tickets held next Monday.
This is not the first time United have stepped in to counter-act a seemingly extortionate price hike in the Champions League, with the club also helping with subsidising away fans for the trip to Valencia in the group stage this season and for the round-of-16 first leg in Sevilla last year. The move drew praise from the The Manchester United Supporters Trust after the club released a strongly-worded statement which they hoped would “act as a deterrent to future opponents who look to increase ticket prices for our travelling supporters.”
There is expected to be pressure from Uefa to intervene, particularly as the Champions League’s governing body investigated the price hike from last season involving Anderlecht’s home match against Bayern Munich. The Belgian club raised the cost to €100 for a game in November 2017, with many Bayern fans boycotting the match despite their club subsidising the ticket price to around €70. Liverpool also complained to Uefa last season after Porto charged away fans three times as much as their members to watch a Champions League match.