Manchester United have complained to the Football Association (FA) about their away ticket allocation for their FA Cup tie against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium next month, Mail Online have exclusively revealed.
In an encounter steeped in history and memorable moments, the two Premier League giants are set to lock horns in the third round on Sunday 12 January as both Ruben Amorim and Mikel Arteta look to add silverware to their trophy cabinets.
The latter last secured a major trophy in the 19/20 season, while the former will be looking to win the hearts of the Old Trafford faithful by bringing success – in any way, shape or form – to the club in his maiden campaign at the helm.
Under FA rules and regulations, every away side are granted 15 percent of the ticket allocation. Given that the Emirates has a capacity of 60,000, that means that 9,000 travelling Red Devils could be making the trip down to London at the turn of the year.
According to Mail Online’s report, however, Manchester United – who won last season’s competition in tremendous fashion against local rivals Manchester City – have been allocated just short of 8,000 seats as they prepare to defend their title.
And in the aftermath of realising that Arsenal, who are third in the Premier League standings, have given them fewer seats than they are permitted to, the Red Devils have raised the issue with the FA as they seek to get full allocation.
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The report suggested that the club, co-owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family, alerted the Gunners to the issue – but after no inroads were made to finding a joint solution, they have taken it a step further by notifying the governing body.
Adding to that, club insiders are said to feel that the match being brought forward to 3pm should avoid any crowd problems. Blaming the north Londoners in the process, they even had to delay placing their tickets up for sale:
“Arsenal have not provided us with the relevant information required to open applications as planned at 8am tomorrow for our away game in the FA Cup. We’ll update here as and when this is received and will also add updates to our game information on the ticketing website."
The two clubs have a storied history in the oldest competition in world football - and this will be their 17th meeting since their respective formations. Two of those came in the final (1979 and 2005) – Arsenal reigned triumphant on both occasions.