The football Super Cup, which will be played at the Olympic Stadium on Wednesday, can also be seen and heard on the streets of Helsinki. More than 10,000 supporters of Real Madrid and Frankfurt arrive in the city.
The attention of the football world will be in Helsinki on Wednesday, when the reigning Champions League and Europa League winners Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt meet at the Olympic Stadium in the UEFA Super Cup.
The size of the event and the international media attention are exceptionally large for Finland. Last year’s Super Cup between Chelsea and Villarreal in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, had more than 25 million TV viewers worldwide.
– I expect that we will now go over it. Real Madrid will probably garner more interest than last year’s teams, the head of the event function of the Finnish Football Federation Kalle Marttinen says to Urheilu.
The Super Cup has been played since 1998. Until 2012, the match was played annually in Monaco, but since then the venue has changed. The match will now be played in Finland for the first time.
– The Super Cup is the biggest single event that can be organized here in football. I would think that this is the biggest event in sports in general, when we talk about individual matches, says Marttinen.
From the organizer’s point of view, issues related to TV production and security are the biggest things to consider. Around 8,000 Frankfurt and 2,000 Real Madrid supporters are expected to attend. In total, around 12,000 football fans are expected to come to the match from abroad.
Frankfurt supporters in particular are expected to be prominently featured in Helsinki’s street scene on Wednesday. The Germans are supposed to gather in Kaisaniemi park, from where a march to the stadium will be organized along Mannerheimintie. In its event, Frankfurt will take advantage of the Canadian pop star, which will be held in Kaisaniemi park on Tuesday Justin Bieber’s concert stage.
– They will certainly be seen and heard in the city and affect traffic. Real Madrid is not organizing a march, says Marttinen.
Liverpool and Glasgow Rangers, who experienced defeats in the spring Euro finals, were also in the Super Cup, and according to Marttinen’s estimation, they would have brought more supporters to Helsinki than Frankfurt and Real Madrid are bringing now. For example, following Rangers to the finals of the Europa League, Sevilla traveled in the spring, according to estimates
– Of course it would have brought challenges. From a safety point of view, this pair of matches is not a bad option at all, says Marttinen.
The audience capacity of the renovated Olympic Stadium is about 36,000 spectators, but the audience for the Super Cup is 32,000. Media needs take up about half of the capacity of the main stand. The Champions League final cannot be held in Finland, because the final stadium is required to have a capacity of at least 50,000 seats.
The next possible Uefa event at the Olympic Stadium could be the 2025 women’s EC final tournament, which the Swedish Football Association is applying to organize together with Denmark, Sweden and Norway. As the previous tournament that ended recently in England showed, the size category of the event has grown significantly since the previous home games in Finland in 2009.
– If everything goes well here in the Super Cup, then Uefa will see that it works. Of course, it will have a positive effect on the application process for the European Championships, Marttinen concludes.