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Sonicl, if Chelsea or Man U had got through to the final thousands of their fans would have travelled to Athens in the hope of picking up a ticket. I recall a similar number of MU fans travelled to the final in Barcelona. English and England fans have a long history of travelling abroad in big numbers, it's part of our footballing culture. Uefa and the ground's authorities should have realised this and be better prepared to cope with the influx. Apparently, there were no turnstiles and fans were being waved into the ground without tickets being checked. The fact each club only had 17000 tickets leaving an incredible 29000 to corporates and the so called 'uefa family' meant that a good proportion would be available on the black market. The authorities should have known that forgeries would also be in circulation because, again, this is not unusual at big sporting events. It seems a lot of people with legitimate tickets were turned back last night which caused some of the problems with police.
There were too few tickets available, the ground wasn't designed for football and the authorities were badly prepared for the numbers of fans prepared to travel.
I'm not excusing the behaviour of the minority of Liverpool fans last night btw. Turning up to the ground without tickets, buying recognisablly fake tickets and trying to force their way was dangerous and inexcusable. It meant that many of their fellow supporters with legitimate tickets didn't get to the see the game. But, I think it's another case of poor crowd management at a european ground (of which we've seen many examples this year) and the self-indulgent, cronism of uefa that's at cause.
Mind you it was a pretty poor match.
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