Paris Saint-Germain has lodged a formal complaint with UEFA after Arsenal refused a request for 500 extra away tickets for last season’s Champions League semi-final first leg at the Emirates, leaving PSG with 2,500 seats instead of the 3,000 it said it was due.
The dispute has resurfaced as the same clubs met in the Champions League final on Saturday, a match Mikel Arteta described on the eve as a "privilege" to contest — and a reminder of the row over away allocations that shadowed their meeting last season. The UEFA complaint Arsenal PSG tickets matter has returned to focus because the clubs are again playing for the competition’s crown.
Arsenal confirmed it allocated PSG 2,500 away tickets for that first-leg tie; PSG says it asked for an additional 500 and was turned down. The French club publicly complained that the decision "does not find this decision very fair play" and said it had formally referred the matter to UEFA to try to obtain the quota of 3,000 tickets it says is owed under UEFA rules. PSG added it could explore other avenues of appeal between now and Tuesday if necessary.
Those figures are at the heart of the row: UEFA regulations require clubs to allocate five per cent of a stadium's capacity to visiting supporters, and PSG’s complaint frames the 3,000-ticket number as the regulatory baseline. Arsenal did not provide the 3,000 seats PSG sought, and instead maintained the 2,500 allocation that prompted the appeal.
Arsenal defended the decision on security grounds, saying the reduced allocation was driven by security concerns and came at the request of local authorities. That justification sits uneasily against PSG’s argument — PSG points out it received the regular allocation for a league fixture at the Emirates earlier in the season and that it had, before the season started, been granted a special dispensation reducing its allocation to 4.1 per cent at the request of local police.
The clash contains practical contradictions. Arsenal’s local police and security assessment produced an away allocation of 2,500; PSG insists the five-per-cent requirement should yield 3,000 and calls the outcome inconsistent with fair play. Arsenal later received just 2,000 tickets for the reciprocal away fixture, a detail both clubs factor into their respective claims about parity and precedent.
For UEFA the complaint presents a concrete choice: enforce the full 3,000-ticket allocation demanded by PSG and rebuke Arsenal’s security-led reduction, or accept that local policing and stadium safety concerns can override the five-per-cent rule in high-risk fixtures. PSG has already signalled it may press the matter beyond its initial referral, and UEFA’s response has not been confirmed.
Arteta’s description of the final as a "privilege" frames the match for Arsenal, but the wider issue remains unresolved: UEFA must now decide whether its own allocation rule will be applied strictly or whether national authorities’ security requests will be permitted to shrink away quotas — a ruling that will determine how tightly UEFA’s five-per-cent rule binds clubs in future high-profile fixtures.
