Rangers and Eintracht Frankfurt fans have swarmed Seville ahead of Wednesday’s Europa League final, and Spanish police are expecting them to do plenty of drinking.
At a Tuesday briefing of leaders from Spain’s national police service, General Commissioner for Citizen Security Juan Carlos Castro Estevez said that 100,000 Rangers fans and 50,000 for Eintracht Frankfurt posed a massive challenge in terms of event security.
“We will host two fanbases that drink a lot. These citizens, who are used to drinking warm beer in their countries, when they find our fresh and cold beers, will drink even more,” said Castro, adding that between the alcohol, the sheer volume of fans who will not have tickets—the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán only seats 42,714—and construction in the area, it could be “a recipe that could lead to serious problems.”
Spanish police may still be a bit bewildered at how many Eintracht Frankfurt fans ended up in the Camp Nou in the quarterfinal. The German club was allotted 5,000 tickets for its second leg against Barcelona, only for a much higher number of fans in white and black to fill the stands.
UEFA has allotted both clubs 10,000 tickets to the match, and police have said they plan to keep the two sets of fans over five kilometers apart before the game, but Castro admitted there is still uncertainty. “We can’t know for sure how many will arrive by car, buses and boats. Eintracht only had 5,000 tickets to their quarterfinal at Barcelona and 30,000 showed up somehow at Camp Nou.”
As a result, security plans call for roughly 5,000 members of Spanish security forces, drawing from national and local branches, to set up in Seville. They’ve also kept tabs on how fans are arriving in Spain, detailing the prospect of fans traveling to Spanish vacation spots like Malaga, Mallorca or the Canary Islands before descending on Seville for the match.
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