The Irons will only have to give five per cent of their home seats to visiting fans in the Europa Cup tournament as opposed to the 15 per cent for domestic Cup clashes.
Uefa rules allow for five per cent of the tickets for visiting fans which equates to just 1,750 seats, leaving around 33,000 for Hammers fans wanting the experience European competition.
Europa league regulations say: ‘All clubs in the competition must make at least 5% of the total capacity of their stadium available exclusively to visiting supporters, in a segregated, safe area. In addition, visiting clubs are entitled to purchase up to 200 top-category tickets for their VIP supporters’
In addition UEFA states “The official UEFA representatives and at least 20 representatives of the visiting club and its association must be provided with top-category seats (and associated hospitality) in the VIP sector.”
Another difference between English Cup competitions and the Europa League is the home club gets to keep 100% of the ticket revenue unlike the FA Cup where the club keeps 45%.
If West Ham were to sell out 33,000 tickets at £20 each that would raise £660,000 per home game. We could well be involved in four home matches in the qualifying and play rounds before reaching the group stages bringing a potential and welcome £2.64m of ticket revenue in addition to any prize money we might earn from the TV rights distribution.
Unfortunately the away allocation rule works means of course that the top seeded West Ham – should they be drawn against a small team like Air UK Broughton FC in Wales – would see us receive a dismal ticket allocation.
Air UK’s Hollingsworth Group stadium in Broughton is famous for its retractable floodlights because it is built on an airfield. It has a stadium capacity of just 1,600. A five per cent allocation would allow just 80 Hammers fans to travel to Wales to watch the match. UEFA requires a category 2 stadium to host qualifying stages the minimum requirement of which is a 1,500 seater stadium.
A West Ham insider said: “I think we need to see the draw first. We’ll look at each game on case by case basis”
1,600
I can’t imagine the local plods would want to have Airbus UK playing against us at their own ground. Chester’s right next door, and Wrexham isn’t that far away, so unless the club was adamant then I can see a game like that being moved to a bigger ground, simply on a crowd safety basis.
I went to Wales….Once.
There’ll be plenty of empty seats for this Europa Cup rubbish – a good chance for the kids to get an airing!
Michael I think you are wrong,we sold out at home with the rubbish are team was playing,
The club will get the backing and many want the European dream,
What should happen is if you go to the early rounds and the club moves to the later stages tickets should be allocated to those had followed the club early on,
I think a couple of price incentives for the loyal fans and there’ll be respectable sized crowds that grow with progress in the competition. Same as the other cups really and I don’t hear any shouts not to be in them.
I’m looking forward to it and hope it’s approached in the right way.
The whole idea of finishing in the top 6 is to progress in to Europe,are we now saying if we finish 5 next year we turn down the chance ?
What’s the difference with playing a team in Wales or Ireland in this cup than playing in New Zealand ? Or going to a little club like Braintree and putting out 5 or 6 youngsters
I just don’t see the problem,our first team has just had 3 days training in 2 weeks before that they went to Dubai and played a max of 180 mins of football,
Hardly running back to back Marathons.
Nice work if you can get it
I for one will be getting tickets to every game possible home and away if I can get them. It’s WHU in Europe in our last season at the Bolyen. What is not great about that? Yes the opposition might not be the highest calibre but we are all sitting here looking for any scrap of news (well I know I am and most of my West Ham friends and Family are) and am keen to see who we get as manager and playing staff so why wouldn’t people want to go and see them in a competitive game? Pre season Friendlies are always good to see but these are competitive games as pre season where a new manager can (hopefully) blood the kids, introduce the new signings and bring back a newly fit AC and Sakho. My god I am getting hypo at the thought of the season starting so early. COYI
Spot on wjo I haven’t been to a preseason game in years but I’ll be going to every Europa one I can get to. For once in a summer we have things to look forward to,we can shake the boredom from our heads and move on up to greater things.
Absolutely!! Last preseason game I went to was in Toronto, and that actually felt like a proper competitive game. I’d much rather have this, where there is something riding on the result.
Plus, I never went to the first two home games in the Intertoto! 😛
Michael you better get your ticket early mate sounds like a sell out to me,
It’s brilliant listening to the enthusiasm for a change.