Updated 11.06
RED-FACED RUGBY bosses have claimed that a free ticket offer for the Champions Cup final at Twickenham was a mistake.
Holders Toulon and Clermont Auvergne meet in an all-French final that has left organisers fearing a half-empty stadium.
Twickenham holds 82,000 fans but there could be as many as 30,000 empty seats on Saturday afternoon.
A number of tickets were made available for “free” over the weekend with fans only required to pay a Ticketmaster booking fee.
The promo was supposed to be restricted as a “buy one, get one free” offer for those who purchased tickets for the Aviva Premiership final but it was mistakenly accessible to the wider public “for a short period,” an EPRC spokesperson told the Express.
This has now been closed and all discount offers and associated offers are linked to a purchase.
Toulon and Clermont also met in the 2013 Heineken Cup final at Lansdowne Road which was fell just short of a sell-out with 50,148 in attendance.
A year earlier, Leinster and Ulster fans filled Twickenham for the only all-Ireland final in the competition’s history.
But less than 29,000 attended the all-French final between Toulouse and Perpignan in Dublin in 2003, and there were over 16,000 empty seats when Toulouse and Stade Francais met at Murrayfield in 2005.