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Liverpool will travel to Porto for a Valentine’s Day clash in the Champions League round-of-16, the Reds’ first such involvement in the premier competition’s later rounds in nine years. Yesterday’s disappointing league loss to Swansea City notwithstanding, Jürgen Klopp’s squad would appear to be favorites on the strength of their European campaign to date, meaning any advantage the Portuguese club can wrangle would help immensely.
These tactics would appear to include the Primeira Liga giants charging traveling Liverpool fans three times what their own supporters will be paying to attend the match. Reds fans looking to purchase tickets to the first leg match have had to cough up €75 (£66.50), while astute observers noted that home supporters will pay as little as €25 (£22.50).
Liverpool have made contact with the body governing the competition to complain about the unsporting practice, also sharing a copy of the statement on the club’s website:
“FC Porto does have a significant discount for its members’ tickets, which are priced at €25 and expect to cover the vast majority of the Estádio do Dragão stadium. It is not apparent that there will be any home general admission tickets sold at €75 due to the anticipated demand by FC Porto members.
“Liverpool FC has therefore raised this significant discrepancy at the highest level with UEFA and FC Porto, who have confirmed that this pricing structure and policy is in line with previous rounds in the competition.
“We will continue our dialogue with UEFA regarding the €50 discrepancy between the home and away ticket prices. We will update supporters when those discussions have concluded.”
Our supporters travelling to Porto to be charged £66.50, whilst their fans in the home end to be charged much less, approx €30. Not acceptable to be treated as a cash cow. We will contact the club and UEFA to find out what has happened https://t.co/o3qbJzdGY5 pic.twitter.com/tLPYRYUGLw
— Spirit of Shankly (@spiritofshankly) January 23, 2018
If the situation doesn’t change prior to the match, Reds fans on social media have been calling for the club to follow Manchester United’s lead, of all people, when the club also met ticketing resistance from Sevilla in their own matchup. United’s solution was to refund their fans by £35 ahead of the away match after the Spanish club charged the visitors €100 (£89) to €150 (£133).
However, in retaliation, the Old Traffod club has come out to say that will be charging Sevilla fans £89 for the reverse fixture.
New year, same petty. #spitewins