TICKETLESS FANS and forged tickets may be the biggest problems facing Roman police in view of tomorrow night’s Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico, Rome.
Reviewing preparations for the match yesterday, Rome Prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro confirmed that forged match tickets had been on sale in the Italian capital in recent days whilst he also acknowledged that as many as 5,000 mainly United fans may travel to Rome without match tickets.
Wednesday night’s big match is obviously a sell out with more than 67,000 fans expected at the Olimpico, including 30,000 United supporters and 20,000 Barcelona fans. United fans will be placed in the Curva Nord end normally the “Kop” for Lazio fans, whilst Barcelona fans will be in the Curva Sud, home to Roma fans.
The majority of supporters are expected to arrive on charter flights at Rome’s two airports, Fiumicino and Ciampino, but fans are also expected to use every other transport, including not only trains, buses and cars but also a boat since 1,700 Catalan fans are expected to arrive in the Lazio port of Civitavecchia this evening.
Whilst both Prefect Pecoraro and senior Rome police officer Giuseppe Caruso expressed the hope that the game would not present any serious problems, particularly from the public order viewpoint, both men did admit yesterday that there could be isolated incidents caused both by the ticketless fans and also by those who are victims of forgeries.
With specific reference to the violent incidents which marred Manchester United’s Champions League game with AS Roma in Rome last season, the Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemano, was keen to point out that police authorities had liaised closely with the Roman club in an attempt to prevent any repetition of those incidents: “I have asked the Interior Minister Maroni to deploy the maximum number of police for this game. So as to limit the risks, we’ve also been in close touch with the Roma fans, calling on them to help us out. Our biggest worry concerns those 5,000 fans with counterfeit tickets or no tickets even if we reckon that only a few hundred of them could be considered as ultras (potentially violent fans),” said the Mayor yesterday.
As is the normal practice for a game of this importance, the sale of alcohol has been banned from tonight until Thursday morning in the inner city zone around the Stadio Olimpico. Further to that, English fans have been advised to avoid potential problem areas such as Campo Di Fiori, a well-known late night drinking spot where drink-related skirmishes are a regular occurrence.
The question of liquids, however, is sure to be of major concern to all visiting fans since this has been an unusually hot May in Italy with the temperature rising to 29 degrees in downtown Rome yesterday.
