HBCU Tickets

PRICED OUT OF THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

This has become the year of the grotesque fleecing of sports fans.

They are wanted at the showpiece games because, even in the age when television rights dwarf all other income streams, what would the spectacle be without the passion of the audience?

And maybe there will be a Klondike rush when tickets go on sale this Thursday for the 2011 Champions League final, at Wembley Stadium in London on May 28.

The poor, the young, the unemployed or even the everyday fan who supports a team through thick and thin need not apply.

As to the next generation, they will need very well-heeled parents to attend the game. A limited number of reduced-price children’s tickets will be available, but only in the £225, or $363, category.

This would mean that a father-son or mother-daughter day out at Wembley that Saturday could cost £338, about $547, in entrance fees alone. Travel, subsistence and general expenses will doubtless double that outlay or, since this is Europe’s final and not just England’s, possibly treble it because of demand.

So the game that is awash with money even during tough economic times is in effect pricing itself beyond the reach of its grass-roots support and its future support. UEFA, the European ruler, and banker, of soccer, has a peculiar sense of scale.

Its director of competitions, Giorgio Marchetti, argues that its pricing is fair and reasonable. “This is the market price,” he said in London last weekend. “Do you think we would have trouble filling Wembley if the prices were higher?