The Uefa Super Cup match will be played today.
Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt will be seen at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. ZUMAWIRE / MVPHOTOS
Organizing the Uefa Super Cup match is a huge operation for the Football Association.
Head of the Finnish Football Association’s event function and Super Cup project manager Kalle Marttinen says that preparations for the match started already 11 months ago.
A significant number of people are involved in the arrangements.
– When you add everything up, from the stall sellers and the orderlies, there are probably about a couple of thousand of us on match day.
Organizing a match between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt is different from, for example, organizing Huuhkajie’s home matches.
According to Marttinen, there is significantly more construction. Construction started two and a half weeks ago. It usually takes 3–4 days for the construction contract for the Huhkaj games.
– The biggest difference is the TV arrangements. We have Ballonkenttä 2 taken over for TV use, which means half of the football field is used only for TV production. It is considerably larger than in the Huhkajie game. About half of the main auditorium is used by the media.
– There is a 1,500-square-meter tent in the Olympic Stadium square for UEFA guests.
Quite a large number of Frankfurt supporters are coming. ZUMAWIRE / MVPHOTOS
More security guards
More than 12,000 foreign supporters are coming to the match. Frankfurt has sold around 8,000 tickets from its own ticket quota to its fans, and in addition, several hundred tickets from the general quota have gone to Germany.
Real Madrid has sold around 1,700 tickets from its own quota.
The large number of people also means a larger number of security personnel compared to Huuhkajie matches.
– It causes some extraordinary arrangements. If you compare it to the France game, which was roughly the same size in terms of audience, now there are clearly more security personnel compared to that.
A small number of problem supporters may also come from Germany, but this information has not yet been confirmed, according to Marttinen.
However, the possible arrival of the group has been taken into account.
– Of course, it is taken into account in the arrangements, but it does not require any massive special measures. We have prepared in different ways and have done different things what if scenarios. So that we are prepared for different situations.
Real Madrid won the Champions League at the end of last season. AOP