Manchester United are planning to subside fans travelling for the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final, after Barcelona announced that they would be charging €120 (around £100) for tickets.
Barca do a roaring trade in ‘tourist’ tickets and inflated prices are the norm at Camp Nou, but United are hoping to alleviate some of the expense by indulging in a little tit-for-tat for the first leg at Old Trafford.
As reported by football scribe and United fan Andy Mitten, the Premier League side are planning to offset the cost by ramping up the price of their own tickets in retaliation.
The €120 Barça are charging MUFC fans for Camp Nou is the most expensive ticket in MU’s history outside of a final. MUFC will now increase cost of Barça’s tickets at OT to €120…and use difference to subsidise ticket prices for travellers to Camp Nou down to £75.
— Andy Mitten (@AndyMitten) 20 March 2019
A statement then appeared on United’s official site confirming that a “difficult decision” had been made to stage their pricing ploy:
In this instance we believe that our travelling supporters are again being subjected to increased/excessive ticket prices from the host club.
We have again taken the difficult decision to charge Barcelona fans for the home leg at Old Trafford the same amount that Barcelona are charging for the away fixture (£102).
We will use the additional revenue gained from this to subsidise our travelling support by paying the £27 price difference for each of our travelling supporters.
We’re not entirely sure this is the most healthy way forward as Barca’s travelling supporters are now being punished too, but it’s probably all United could do for their own fans given the unfavourable circumstances they found themselves in.
Doesn’t mask the fact that £75 is still absolutely exorbitant either, but that’s a different grumble for another time.