Chelsea fans who have missed out on Champions League final tickets after being told by the ticket office they had sold out have been left furious after it was revealed that over 800 unsold ones were returned.
A huge number of Chelsea supporters have desperately been trying to acquire tickets for Saturday’s final against Manchester City in Porto but were informed by the club that they had sold out their allocation.
However, the club are now facing a backlash from angry fans after they returned nearly 900 of the 3,000 tickets they had held back as part of their charter package.
Chelsea were offering fans official day trips, worth £200 per person plus the cost of the match ticket, with the flights subsidised by the club.
The package deal supposedly proved to be unpopular among fans with almost a third of the tickets set aside for it failing to sell and subsequently sent back.
It has however quickly turned into a PR disaster for Chelsea, as it emerged that fans had day-trip applications rejected and were told no tickets were available despite hundreds now being returned.
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Tickets on general sale had sold out but there were over 800 left linked to the package deal that went unsold.
MailOnline has contacted Chelsea for comment.
Unlike Manchester City, who have paid for their fans’ travel and Covid testing, Chelsea did not offer to cover the costs for match-going fans’ tests and were only subsidising part of supporters’ travel to the final.
It was understood that fans had been put off by the package deal for a variety of reasons, including ticket prices, Covid and being restricted to less than 24 hours in Porto.
Chelsea Supporter Trust board member Dan Silver had blamed UEFA’s insistence on offering a charter package for the ticket fiasco before it came to light that a number of fans had tried to purchase them only to be told they had sold out.
He said: ‘UEFA’s lack of care for fans has again come to the fore.
‘They came to be our friends over the European Super League but now they have turned their backs on us again.