TICKET-LESS Rangers fans hoping to find a way into the UEFA Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg were dealt a fresh blow today when the Russian club claimed they would taking up their full allocation.
A scramble for tickets for the May 14 final at the City of Manchester Stadium began immediately after Nacho Novo scored the penalty shoot-out winner for the Light Blues against Fiorentina in Florence last Thursday.
Due mainly to political reasons,
there has been no tradition of Russian football fans travelling outside their country to follow their clubs.
When Rangers beat Moscow Dynamo in the European Cup Winners' Cup final in the Nou Camp in 1972, there were only a handful of Dynamo supporters in the stadium.
Despite a relaxation in rules surrounding travel in and out of Russia in recent years, Zenit manager Dick Advocaat feared there might only be around 5,000 Zenit fans making the journey to England.
Consequently, many Rangers fans hoped that the St Petersburg club might send back part of their 13,000 allocation to be reissued.
However, a spokesman for Zenit told PA Sport that all their tickets will be snapped up.
The spokesman said: "We will sell all our tickets, there is no doubt about that.
"We had 3,000 in Munich for the first leg of our semi-final against Bayern and many more want to go to Manchester.
"We have had our first allocation of 7,000 tickets from UEFA and they are gone.
"We are waiting for the second part of 4,000 and I have no doubt that they will be sold too, as will the rest we get.
"Our fans will have no problems travelling to Britain.
"They do need a special passport that allows them to leave the country but many of our 16,000 season-ticket holders and our other fans, already have it.
"They also need a visa to travel to Britain but the British Consulate will open offices in St Petersburg and Moscow to allow those to be rushed through."
Zenit will be appearing in their first European final and it appears that the Russian club's fans are equally as keen to get to Manchester as their Ibrox counterparts.
The spokesman continued: "Some of our fans will be flying from St Petersburg to Riga, then to Manchester.
"Others will be flying from St Petersburg to London then getting a train to Manchester.
"The average salary for our fans is around 500 euro (£390) per month and some of the air fares are 600 euro (£470) so it is an expensive trip and it means that not many of our young fans will be able to afford it.
"But we will have a very enthusiastic support in Manchester."
The full article contains 470 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
