UEFA Cup Tickets 2007/ 2008

Will attendances at White Hart Lane, Goodison and the Reebok Stadium be bigger than they were for Middlesbrough’s campaign in 2006?

Fans of Tottenham Hotspur, Everton and Bolton Wanderers will be looking forward to their teams enjoying a slice of European football during the forthcoming 2007/ 2008 UEFA Cup campaign. Or will they?

Since the formation of the Champions League – and in particular since the major nations were allowed three or four places in European football’s premier competition – the UEFA Cup has lost a bit of its appeal.

Despite it being a major European trophy, an air of inconvenience hangs over the entire competition. This is hardly surprising, given the ludicrously drawn out format of the competition, which includes a group stage where the number of teams is reduced from 40 to… 32.

This has been reflected in the ticket sales and attendances for the games. In 2006, English club Middlesbrough fought their way through to the final, yet there were huge swathes of empty seats at the Riverside Stadium.

Did the fans not care about the UEFA Cup? It seems not as much as they did about the club’s Premier League games, and given the choice of buying expensive tickets for clashes with Manchester United and Liverpool or Grasshopper Zurich and AZ Alkmaar, the domestic fixtures won out.

Last year, Tottenham proved an exception, regularly filling White Hart Lane in London, but the other British clubs struggled to get good attendances. Will fans of Everton and Bolton Wanderers be excited enough by the prospect of European football to fork out for tickets to UEFA Cup matches at the Reebok Stadium and Goodison this year?