Liverpool Only Allocated 10,236 Tickets For Europa League Final

Liverpool have only been allocated 10,236 tickets for the Europa League final, with just 47% of tickets reserved for actual supporters.

The clash with Sevilla is set to be held at St Jakob-Park, the home ground of Swiss champions Basel. With a capacity of around 35,000, its suitability for hosting a major European final is coming under serious scrutiny from fans.

Liverpool have 27,000 season ticket holders, while they took 32,000 fans to Wembley for the Capital One Cup final in February. Speaking after the Reds' victory over Villarreal on Thursday evening, Jurgen Klopp said: "We take 50, 60, 70,000 Liverpudlians [to the final] with us, not in the stadium but in the city. Maybe 100,000."

While Liverpool fans have been allocated just over 10,000 tickets, 41% of the overall capacity will be reserved for the "contractual supporter allocation" which includes hospitality members, priority rights holders, matchday officials and contractual partners.

Earlier in the season, Liverpool supporters' group Spirit of Shankly wrote to UEFA questioning the ticket allocation for the final but "received a disappointing response."

The latest statement on their website reads: "It is crystal clear that this amount tickets will not be enough to satisfy demand at Basel's St Jakob Park Stadium. Tens of thousands of supporters will have attended every home game this season and a large number will miss out.

"We know that for past European finals, as many as 30,000 fans have travelled to cities and countries less accessible than Basel. We also know from past experience, that tickets are first distributed among the club's sponsors and partners, corporate ticket holders and players before regular match-going supporters."

It goes on: "Given the poor choice of location of the final, even though it is easily accessible, supporters will struggle to find accommodation (most hotel rooms are booked already) and there is little in the way of transport out of the city after the match (there are no trains after midnight to the nearest city of Mulhouse, or to elsewhere in Switzerland). These would be issues that affect all supporters who could be faced with a final in Basel.

"We do, therefore, join the club in urging fans against making plans to avoid disappointment. Whilst it is not our place to tell supporters what to do, it is pretty clear that Basel is not best equipped to deal with such large numbers that we have witnessed in previous years."

Spirit of Shankly now plan to contact the relevant authorities to address their concerns. Bar a drastic rethink from UEFA, tens of thousands of fans look set to miss out on the match.