Cup rivals cooperate to smooth fans' road to Moscow

Manchester United and Chelsea were doing their utmost yesterday to ensure that their supporters would be able to get to Moscow for the European Cup final on 21 May.

The club's chief executives, David Gill of United and Chelsea's Peter Kenyon, were due to meet officials from Uefa, the European game's governing body, in Moscow to discuss preparations for the final, and an announcement is expected in the next 24 hours. Each club has an allocation of 21,000 tickets with the capacity at the Luzhniki Stadium being set at 69,500 for the final.

Uefa's director of communications, William Gaillard, was optimistic ahead of the planned talks. "We have no specific worries or problems," he said. "I think both clubs have developed a tradition of travelling abroad and both clubs are very well organised. We have never had any problems with either of those clubs' fans."

Fans who cannot get a final ticket as part of their clubs' allocation may buy tickets from other sources but Gaillard warned: "I would very much discourage them. There is no guarantee that the ticket they get is a bona fide ticket. Also, every ticket has a number and every number identifies a person."

As well as potential problems with visas and ticketing, the number of hotel rooms is potentially catastrophic. Moscow has about 34,000 hotel rooms for about 75,000 guests. Some 5,500 are so-called Western-standard hotel rooms and local media say almost all are booked during the Champions League final.

"It's a well documented fact that Moscow does not have enough hotel rooms for an event of this magnitude," said Natalya Anashkina, Editor in Chief of the Russian Hotel Association's magazine Concept Hotel. "There are a lot of five-star hotels now but the prices there are expensive by European standards."

Calls to two Moscow five-star hotels, the Baltschug-Kempinski and the Ritz-Carlton, showed no rooms. Not even the £2000 per night Honeymoon Suite was available for the final.

One idea floated by deputy mayor Valeriy Vinogradov, the man organising the city's efforts, is for fans to fly in the morning of the match and leave Russia immediately after. "I think the city probably wants the fans to stay for as little time as possible," Anashkina said. "I've been to a few football matches myself and I can tell you, they are not always filled with the most desirable clientele."

The Russian foreign ministry has dispatched teams of extra embassy workers to Manchester and London to expedite entry formalities and officials said all fans would get their visas on time. Earlier in the week, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov said they would build a temporary footbridge over the busy road along Luzhniki Stadium and officials said the city would open its smallest airport Bykovo to comply with a Uefa requirement that opposing fans arrive separately.

The city's underground system would also run an extra three hours into early hours of the morning after the game.

Gaillard insisted it was not late in the day for Uefa to be making these arrangements. "If we had reached a conclusion earlier we may not have been able to obtain as good an agreement as we hope to have now," he added.

Russian police made tactical planning visits to witness English forces dealing with the Liverpool v Arsenal and Manchester United v Roma quarter-finals last month. Gaillard said: "The Russian police have been helped by the English police to a great extent and we do not envisage security problems in Moscow – in terms of size it is a similar event to two large clubs going to London for an FA Cup final.

"It is not the first time there has been such a situation for the Champions League final – we had Milan v Juventus in Manchester and Real Madrid v Valencia in Paris. The main issues for us are the airport capacities and air transport capacity because there will be more than 50,000 people coming from Britain and all by air."