Category: UEFA Competitions

• Most will pay between £70 and £97 per home game
• Move denounced by Aston Villa supporters’ trust

Aston Villa have been accused of being “out of touch” and ignoring a request from their fan advisory board to cap Champions League ticket prices on the club’s return to Europe’s elite. Most supporters are faced with paying between £70 and £97 per home game when the competition returns this month, casting a cloud over their meetings with Bayern Munich, Bologna, Juventus and Celtic at Villa Park.

The fan advisory board had asked that prices for European ties be capped at Villa’s category A Premier League rates. But that did not materialise in Wednesday’s announcement and Villa face charges of exploiting supporters who have not seen their side compete at the highest level since the 1982-83 season, when they were knocked out of the European Cup quarter-finals by Juventus.

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The biggest teams facing each other more often is in danger of only serving the interests of Uefa, and not of football

There is an argument that for a few years the draw has been the best bit of the group stage of the Champions League. Here they are, the Fates, the sleek besuited former players, smiling and speaking only in corporate banalities, shaping destiny through the medium of miniature plastic footballs and glass bowls.

And there’s the ringmaster, the Italian deputy general secretary of Uefa, Giorgio Marchetti, with his Eurotrivia and unlikely catchphrases, “a very nice draw” and “…according to the established protocols”. His appearance is benign, but then we thought that of his predecessor; could he be plotting a coup to take over world football?

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