By Andrew Warshaw in Paris
March 21 – European football’s governing body are refusing to lower ticket prices for the Champions League final at Wembley despite its President Michel Platini admitting they were too expensive.
It was Platini who brought about the move to switch the most important club game in Europe to a Saturday, specifically to enable more families to attend.
Yet the cheapest ticket on public sale for the final on May 28 will be a monstrous £150 plus a £26 booking fee and Platini admitted last week that family tickets should be half the price they are being sold for.
Platini’s number two says it’s too late, however, to change the pricing with the final just over two months away.
“The ticket prices for Wembley will not change – the ticket sales have already started,” said UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino.
Speaking after a meeting of UEFAs Executive Committee, Infantino also confirmed that Europe will retain its nine-group qualifying format for the 2014 World Cup but couldn’t say whether the same controversial seeding system would be used in the play-offs.
The Continent’s 53 teams will be divided into eight groups of six and one of five.
The nine group winners will qualify automatically for Brazil and the eight best runners-up will take part in two-leg playoff ties to decide the remaining four berths.
The playoffs caused huge controversy in the qualifying competition for the 2010 World Cup when FIFA made a late decision to seed four of the teams based on the world rankings.
As a result, Portugal, France, Greece and Russia were seeded, with France eliminating the Republic of Ireland via Thierry Henry’s infamous handball that caused global outrage.
But Infantino said FIFA had no power to seed the playoffs – or not to.
“The regulation is done by FIFA, including any question related to seedings,” he said.
UEFA also plans to establish a new network of so-called “integrity officers” throughout Europe to target corruption following a spate of match-fixing scandals.
The organisation monitors 29,000 matches a season in the first and second divisions of all 53 national associations to see whether there are irregular betting patterns. But some games still slip through the net, not least at international level.
All seven goals in two recent friendlies between Bulgaria-Estonia and Latvia-Bolivia came from penalties and six officials are being investigated as a result.
“It is a danger in as far as it affects the soul of football and that’s why we have decided to tackle this issue as strongly as possible,” said Infantino of match-fixing.
“It’s not a huge issue but if you don’t eradicate the cancer before it starts to develop it can become a danger.
“In the countries where it has been possible to fight efficiently against match-fixing, it has been possible only thanks to the support of the authorities.
“We cannot do this – we are only a sports organisation.
“But what we can do is act very strongly.
“There is zero tolerance – if someone wants to cheat in football, there is no place [for them].
Tomorrow’s UEFA Congress will see Platini re-elected unopposed for another four years as President.
Spain’s Angel Villar Llona will also be re-elected unopposed as a FIFA vice-president and Germany’s Theo Zwanziger will replace compariot Franz Beckenbauer, who stands down, as a FIFA Executive Committee member.
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