Champions League Final

Intro: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”.

Champions League Final ticket.

How do you get Champions League Final tickets? Easy. But not simple. This is a story worthwhile a separate chapter in my autobiography. Here it is, a “Step-by-step guide to buy a Champions League Final ticket”. This is a story of how you deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, trying to turn “unknowns” into “less of unknowns” and gradually to “knowns”.

1.     Around January February 2018, I realised that Champions League Final will be held in Kyiv, the capital of my homeland. This is one of those things you want to do in your lifetime. Living away from Europe for a while, you are even more desperate to see this kind of events. In 2017, I was considering going to Cardiff for the weekend to watch the final, but it would have been a logistical nightmare for me, so I did not even try. This time, it is in Ukraine and I need to go.

2.     I properly registered for the draw on UEFA website before 15 March 2018. A couple of weeks after I learned that I was not selected to win the tickets. Frustrated? Of course. Gave up? No fucking way.

3.     Around March, I agreed the timing of my holidays which had to be around Champions League date of 26 May 2018. I booked flights from Mauritius to Kyiv well ahead of (Ha Ha) the supporting fans of Real Madrid and Liverpool, i.e. when the competition was in its 1/8 stage (Round of 16).

4.     As the tournament progressed, I started to look out for the tickets being offered online by resellers. That did not look promising at all as the nominal prices for Category 4 ticket of € 70 and Category 1 ticket of € 450 turned into € 800 and up to € 3,000 – € 4,000 if wrapped into hospitality packages.

5.     I could not reconcile in my head how you actually buy tickets online from a reseller, how do you physically obtain the tickets from someone, what are the guarantees? Having read the feedbacks from a number of websites-resellers, it seemed like a virtually certain opportunity to be disposed of cash without getting anything in return.

6.     Beginning of May, as the participants of the final became known, I sent the message into space, spread the word around and sent a request on facebook to see whether there are any ways of buying tickets at a reasonable price. There were some leads, and I appreciate the responses and assistance from some of my friends and colleagues. Did I get the ticket? No, not just yet.

7.     It is worth mentioning that I also informed my wife about my intention to visit the key game of the year in European football. When she learned about the value of potential cash outflow from our family’s budget, we ended up at the new spiral of “Hello, we are getting divorced again!” So, that was another issue to manage along the road to Kyiv.

8.     So, I flew out from Mauritius to Kyiv on 20 May, a week before the final, still without an idea of how I get to the Olimpiyskiy stadium. I started talking to my friends-fans who were regulars on football games and who would follow Dynamo abroad and within the country. I got to know that None! None of the people I knew were attending / planning to attend the game. The reasons included: “too expensive”, “football has gone mad and too commercial and we are against it”, etc etc. My friends advised to not purchase anything online, as this is a guaranteed flop. And the last thing I would want to do is to have the funds written off my bank account, not getting anything in return and completely ruining my well-deserved less than two-week holiday break.

9.     Thursday, 2 days before the Final. I am meeting an old friend from Deloitte who advised that I should try buy it just before the kick off. Statistically speaking, some of the resellers would not be able to sell all tickets, and they would drop prices even below face value. Though great as an idea, I did not have balls of steel and the luxury of previous Champions League Final experiences, to wait until the starting minutes of the game, to look for the desperate crooks hoping to recover at least their cost of investment. I had lots of scheduled meetings with friends, and leaving the ticket purchase to the last moment would completely ruin my quality time with friends.

10.  Friday, 1 day before the final. This is a story in itself. I meet another friend from Deloitte with whom we have not met for 10 years if not more. If you have seen the film “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” and its opening scene, which basically tells the story of how the string of random events result in something specific and if you try to piece it all together looking forward, there is no way you can predict how the events will unfold. You can only unbundle the events looking backwards in history. Anyways, this friend asked me to bring a plate from Mauritius. The story goes as follows. She met with a client and during the casual chat she learnt that her client was collecting small souvenir plates from various countries he had visited. Unfortunately, a plate from Mauritius got broken which deeply upset the guy. A friend then suggested that she might get one from Mauritius having myself in mind as a potential plate supplier in the short-term future. I did agree to bring a Mauritius plate. Now I was sitting with a friend exchanging a 10-year summary of our lives in a 45 minute conversation. I revealed my intention of wanted to go the game. She said that two of her colleagues went to the stadium yesterday (2 days before the game) and purchased tickets for €500 each. You should check it out yourself, she said. I finally felt back on the hunt. I finally felt the smell of blood in the air! It is here somewhere, I am about to get it! I walked with a friend down to the Stadium which happened to be just next to her work.

11.  I am now next to the Stadium, looking out for the greedy resellers offering tickets for 3-5 times the nominal price. There was a group of people, looking like they have something I need. Now I realise that I do not even know how the tickets look like. And if I was given a counterfeit, I would not be able to differentiate between a genuine one and a fake one. So, I come up to the group of these people and start talking to them. They speak German and Polish between themselves. Talking English to me. We start conversation in German / English. They offer Category 1 tickets for € 1,000 and Category 3 for € 700. I feel I am about to finally buy a ticket. But not just yet. I looked at the tickets, I could see which the layers of protection are being used. And they seem real. They seem genuine. I start talking to the younger guy in German. I pushed the price down from € 650 for Cat 3 down to € 500. But I need to go to meet the guy in the hotel Hyatt in the downtown Kyiv (it is actually the heart of Kyiv not just downtown). Not a bad place to stay for a gang of international German-Polish crooks, I’d say. So, 7pm is the time we would meet and do the transaction.

12.  I have scheduled a meeting with my university friends for 6:30 pm same day. I had now a few hours to prepare cash for the ticket and relax a bit before the meeting. I called one of my university friends, and if his time permitting to accompany me to go to Hyatt in case we might need some muscle power to protect my genuine right to attend the game. He happily agreed and I walked to down to Maidan Nezalezhnosti to meet up with him. I had about 30 minutes before he would come over. I went to McDonald’s, tired and wanted to take a breather, sat at one of the tables outside, next to an aged couple most likely from Spain.

13.  As I was sitting next to the couple, I thought they must have been Real Madrid fans. I knew that a few thousand Real Madrid fans refused to come to the Final in Kyiv as the flight prices to the capital of Ukraine sky-rocketed and rental costs went absolutely insane, as the owners probably wanted to earn a few years worth of rental over a few days time. So, as my natural curiosity suggested, I asked them how much they spend on their Champions League Final tickets. They did not speak English, so I had to converse this out of my shattered and neglected Spanish. This made it more interesting and luckily, they were interested in the conversation. Now, the guy pulls out a transparent file with 4 tickets inside. And I see that he starts to offer 2 of them to me for €650 each. I tell him that I have an option to buy for € 500 within an hour. But just in case, he has written his phone number on a piece of McDonald’s ad, and explained that we could meet tomorrow at 9am next to Палац Спорту or Sport Palace metro station. Ok, I said, at least I have a Plan B (see exhibit 1).

14.  My friend arrived, and we walked together to Hyatt which was just a few blocks away from McDonald’s. Unlike me, my friend had a ticket reserved for him by his mate who was residing in the UK. So, he was totally relaxed, having finished his working week, ready for drinking tonight and for football game tomorrow. We walked in Hyatt, I called the ticket owner – international барига Jimmy. We sat in the lobby, opposite the guy. I finally understood the set up: Hyatt hosted the Champions League organising committee, and my guy was being one them, had access to sponsors’ tickets. My guy барига Jimmy (what a name for a German of Polish origin, I thought) behaved in a very strange way. He sent me messages on whatsapp asking not to approach him and later to leave the hotel and wait for him outside. But he also alerted me to see Luis Figo who just arrived as part of a football legends gang, which was so cool to see the 2000 Golden Ball Winner and recipient of a pig’s head missile at Camp Nou when he traded Barcelona for Real Madrid. My new friend Jimmy came out of the hotel to say that he does not have Cat 3 ticket for € 500 but he has Cat 1 ticket for €1,000. And if I need a Cat 3 ticket for € 500, I need to come back in a hour. Fucking hell, ok then. What else can I say.

15.  My patience level was going down. Luckily I was having a good time with my university mates at Prorizna, telling them stories and sharing our experiences at school and beyond. But international Барига Jimmy was making me nervous. The game is tomorrow and I still do not have the ticket. I took Uber to go to see Jimmy in his hotel. He did not return the call but he texted me to say that he went out to dinner in town. He fucked me up twice and my hope was fading out. I could no longer trust the guy and I was getting desperate. We parted with university mates and I went to my friends to stay overnight.

16.  On the game-day 26 May 2018, I woke up around 6am. I pulled out the note written by a Spanish couple. I put in the phone number into my phone, adding Spain country code. The photo of the guide popped out in whatsapp. Huuuh. It is a genuine number, Jesus F. Christ! I send him a text to confirm for the meeting at Sport Palace at 9am. I got a response back Cat 3 for € 500 at 9am. I am off to the metro. I am going out of the metro station at Sport Palace and see the couple waiting for me…

P.S. The game is a separate story.

P.S.S. Facebook pick-up Spanish guy profile and suggested him as a friend. This guy turned out to be a big Real Madrid fan and had photos for the past 10-15 years with all players and managers, including both Ronaldo from Brasil, Christiano Ronaldo, Zidane, Morinho, and all of the other big names in the club.