MALMO have been swamped by a remarkable demand from their own supporters to be at Celtic Park for a memorable Champions League outing next week.
The Swedish champions expect to be backed by 1000 fans when they visit the east end of Glasgow for the key play-off, first leg, encounter next Wednesday. That is a record for any Malmo qualifying tie in Europe.
The demand for seats on Glasgow flights has soared, with three aircraft virtually sold out, and fans wanting another one put on. The first flight put on by the club sold out last Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after the Uefa draw paired Malmo with Ronny Deila’s side.
The second went on sale yesterday morning and it was sold out just four minutes later. Malmo then put on a third flight and that is expected to fully booked by today. Three full planes will ensure 500 fans heading to Glasgow and the Swedish club believe just as many will make it to Celtic Park under their own steam.
Malmo asked Celtic for 1000 tickets for the first leg on August 19, although they are entitled to 2600 under Uefa rules. “There's a real craving to see Malmo in Europe,” one fan, Fredrik Ingesson, told Swedish newspapers yesterday.
“If we get a third plane sold, we might contact the flight broker and see if we can pull off a fourth plane. Three full planes involves around 500 people. And then there are many who will get there on their own, with regular flights.”
The man in charge of looking after those fans during the ‘Glasgow Invasion’ is Pierre Nordberg, Malmo’s SLO (Supporters Liason Officer). “We believe that we will have around a thousand people on location in Glasgow and it will be great fun,” said Nordberg.
“This will be the largest-ever support to a qualifier in Europe, for Malmo, beating the 700 people who were at Sparta Prague last year for a Champions League qualifier.”
The amount of Malmo fans at Parkhead will be four times the number the 'blue-and-whites’ took on their previous Euro strips to Scotland. There were 275 Malmo fans at Ibrox against Rangers in the Champions League qualifier in 2011 and 275 came to Easter Road when they routed Hibernian 7-0 in the Europa League qualifier in 2013.
The 1000-strong support matches the support Malmo took to Turin last season to play Juventus in the Champions League group stage and is only outdone by the 2000 Swedish fans who travelled to Madrid for the game with Atletico in the same group in 2014-15.
Malmo’s public popularity was underlined by the fact that 21,127 were in the Swedbank Arena last Sunday to see them defeat rivals IFK Gothenburg 2-1 in a derby match with their west-coast rivals.
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