Seats in the top tier at Wembley have all been taken off sale. While on here were probably aware of the groupon offer, many non RL fans won’t be. If Londoner Joe Bloggs decicides he might give the cup final a go, the cheapest available from the RFL is £50. I’m not normally one for bashing the RFL but that is ridiculous when there are going to be 20000 - 30000 empty seats on Saturday.

Reflecting the complete failure of a sports governing body to carry out part of their responsibility, that is to market and promote events.
RU laughs at RL. Rightly so.

Once they knew it was going to be a Catalans v Warrington final and the drop in people attending, it should have kick started a good marketing promotion to give a couple of thousand of tickets to the London Bronsos, London Skolars, London Schools/Clubs who play league etc at a tenner a ticket.
It should have been looked at after the quarter final result months ago.

RL fans have an obsession with attendances. I could give a monkeys, CC finals whoever is playing these days are never full houses and always look bad on tv, live with it. I just hope its a great game of rugby and we could be seeing a little bit of history should Catalans do the business.

it should be looked at regarding of who is playing. we haven't filled Wembley for about a decade now

Those days of a full Wembley for the CC Final were often back when there was no Grand Final, Magic Weekend, Summer Bash etc, hence it was a gathering place for the RL community.

You can only milk the same (limited quantity of) supporters for so much money - it's the number of neutrals who've dropped off considerably.

I like this point of view. We're normally too busy bashing rugby league that we forget to enjoy it!

Removing from sale the cheapest 2 categories of tickets and only leaving the most expensive tickets isn’t going to encourage neutrals to go

Rather embarrassing for Warrington that they'll be involved in a Wembley Challenge Cup final which will certainly have it's lowest ever attendance.

Jonno you really are obsessed with the Wire, I'll miss you next season, will I find you on the Batley forum?

Where is Gall Me God, along with the other expansion disciples to bang on about Catalan being @responsible@ for the highest CC Final crowd at Wembley.
So arrogant, when this subject was raised after Catalan made it into the final and now, "we've" waved the white flag on getting anywhere near filling Wembley.

Come on, lets be having you and please answer the original question about the effect of overseas sides appearing in major finals and whether this impacts on RFL revenues.

It's a real shame though as it should be a cracking game, I'll be there but the expansion disciples probably wont.

Playing in their fifth challenge cup final in ten years . . . how embarrassing!

Lowest ever attendance at Wembley* was the fantastic final where underdogs Sheffield beat firm favourites Wigan, and no-one who witnessed that cared less that there was just 60k there.



*Post 1945 - prior to that several Wembley finals were sub 50k

The RFL were probably offered the chance to insure themselves against the possibility of one of the top 5 supported side's not making it to the final. They refused to do it so they're gonna take a big hit on this one

When the powers that be have put speed restrictions on the M6 and closed Euston station it's hardly surprising that attendance levels are down. No wonder a number of ex players are biking it. Does anyone know if I can get there on a narrow boat?

Really? How is it embarrassing for them? Please explain.

Well you'll need to take the Trent & Mersey Canal, down to the junction with the Coventry Canal, before going south on the Grand Union to Watford/Brentford.

..and presumably I needed to set off last week.

Maybe a fortnight ago just to be sure - assume ~2 mph (accounting for slow running past moored boats and time lost doing locks) and 8-10 hrs running per day, for 150 miles, so somewhere between 7-14 days depending upon your experience.

Just shows you how crap the modern world is. In the early 19th century they already had systems of canal barges that would do the journey non stop and in a quicker time. No wonder we cannot fill the stadium when you could get 30 000 for a ladies crocheting competition in the 1940s. Now where has my butler gone with my monocle?

How many Catalans supporters are going ? Maybe 200

You may be surprised.

A few thousand genuine French / Catalan supporters but, they'll have plenty of support from the 'Neutrals".
Similar to the semis a few weeks ago, there needed to be an offer made through ALL RL clubs to bolster the attendance but, they either couldn't be bothered or, decided that there wasn't enough time - mickey poor

It’s obviously much harder for Catalan supporters to get to the game, flights and ferry crossings booked at short notice are expensive and very limited, meaning some won’t be able to make it. However there is a sizeable French population living in London who will compensate for this. It’s a shame only expensive match tickets remain on sale.

What neutrals?? any genuine RL fan would be mad if they’ve had the misfortune to watch the garbage that they serve up over here.... I’ve seen it twice fake injuries, Bird up to his off the ball tricks spoiling to win etc etc.... only chance of a decent game is if Wire chuck it around with abandon.....

Come on, they were superb in the semi final and a joy to watch.
As for fake injuries, this is something that the game needs to eradicate. EVERY side has taken to having an injury whenever there is a set play near their line, either a scrum, penalty or drop out.
Indeed, this is why the Wakefield fans were booing at Huddersfield when Murphy was injured as we thought it was just more delaying tactics, in his case, he was injured and nobody should boo a player whio is crocked BUT, you'd delayed the game so many times, only for the player to spring to his feet after some work with the magic sponge

.

It should be a great game and close too, roll on Saturday