The price of seeing Los Galacticos in Scotland went into orbit yesterday – with scalpers seeking more than £1000 for a pair of tickets to watch Celtic take on Real Madrid.
The extra-terrestrial cost appeared on the Live Football Tickets website at the weekend, after the Hoops were drawn against the champions of the Champions League.
It is charging £450 per ticket, plus a £135 ‘service fee and tax’, making a pair for next Tuesday’s match at Celtic Park a stunning £1,170 – or twice the price of a Celtic season ticket.
Real Madrid earned the 'Galacticos' nickname early this century, when the squad included out-of-this-world players like Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos and Zinedine Zidane.
Ironically, tickets for the return leg in the Spanish capital are a third of the price, at £142.66 each plus £42.80 service fee.
Rangers fans will also encounter high costs for buying unofficial tickets to see the Light Blues compete with Dutch champions, Ajax, in Amsterdam next week.
Some tickets to the Johan Cruyff ArenA are priced at £400 each but the cheapest can be bought for £169.84 plus £50.95 service fee, making a total of £220.79. The website warns that these tickets should not be used by UK passport holders.
The site also boasts that it has 407 spare briefs for Rangers ‘away’ visit to Liverpool on October 4. These range in price from £340 per ticket to £899 for hospitality seats – plus booking fees.
It’s the first time in 15 years that the Glasgow giants have both featured in the world’s premier club competition and the pent-up demand was evident from dawn on Saturday, when the new match schedule was released.
Air fares soared sky-high over the weekend as fans of Celtic and Rangers clamoured to book up for glamour day-trips trips to Europe in the world's most prestigious club competition.
For example, a return flight from Glasgow to Madrid with EasyJet via London, hit 1043 Euros (£884) for the day before the match. For the previous week, you can buy a ticket for £173.
Soaring prices did not seem to deter many supporters, who will travel to Madrid and Amsterdam with no hope of securing a match ticket. Madrid have restricted Celtic’s allocation to just 1,800 due to refurbishment work at the iconic Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
One fan, calling himself ‘Mowbrayschin’ wrote on the Kerrydale Street website:”Madrid away booked. No chance of a ticket, mind.”
Celtic trounced Dundee United 9-0 today, second only to the club’s record 11-0 victory over Dundee in 1895.
The Daily Record has contacted Live Football Tickets to comment.
