Club Brugge Defends Minimum Ticket Allocation For NUFC Fans
By Tyne-Talk
October 25 2012
Newcastle United travel to the Jan Breydel Stadium on the 8th November but they will be without thousands of fans who had made travel arrangements in anticipation of a ticket. The Belgian side have allocated just 1,470 tickets to Newcastle United supporters out of their 29,472 capacity. Today Brugge's press officer Pieter Marechal has defended the decision.
Talking to the Gazette, he has also responded to criticism, that last season Birmingham City were initially offered a low allocation, which was then increased to 6000 tickets, but that the club have failed to extend the same courtesy to the North East club.
“The difference between the case of Birmingham and the case of Newcastle is that Newcastle is a much bigger club, and much more well known for our fans.
So we have many more fans who would like to be able to see that match in our stadium. With Birmingham, from the start, we doubted that we would be able to sell our complete stadium capacity, so we made the decision to make a bigger stand available for their fans.
The problem with our stadium is that we can’t give half of that stand because of security issues. We have to make sure the away fans can’t mingle with the home fans.
In our main stand, we don’t have the possibility to give half, so we only have the amount we can give me, which also conforms with the regulations of UEFA.
With Birmingham, we doubted that we would sell all those tickets to our own supporters because of the fact Birmingham are a smaller club, so we sold the entire tribune (stand) to the people of Birmingham when they said they would take all our tickets.
With Newcastle, we also heard they had an interest in taking a bigger amount of tickets, but we cannot split the tribune in half because of safety issues.
And for us it was important that fans who wanted to see this game against Newcastle have the opportunity to see the game.
That’s the reason why we have a different amount of tickets for sale for the away fans with the Birmingham game and the Newcastle game.
Birmingham was an exception. For all the other games, we didn’t make an exception, and for this one we haven’t made an exception as well.”
Club Brugge have allocated Newcastle United the minimum 5% of tickets and the local police have warned all fans without a ticket not to travel, or face being arrested in the local area.
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