Aren’t you a Widnes fan and your on about Warrington been embarrassed oh the irony

KO

Regards

King James

50,000 is roughly the capacity of the lower tier and Club Wembley. Given the visible number of empty seats in both of them I would guess there was around 35,000 in the ground. I said the same for our final V Hull two years ago too. The crowd for that was obviously bigger than today, and the upper tier was open (I was in it) but the attendance announced was far higher than the number of people in the ground because there was visibly thousands of empty seats.

Wembley holds 90, courtesy of a quick Google just over 39,000 seats are in the top level. TV showed the lower levels to be busy but not full, real attendance was probably 40-45,000. That is no reflection on either Warrington or Catalans. The authorities have inadvertently undermined the attraction for neutrals with the Grand Final and Magic weekend.

It may be that the time has come to move the Final from Wembley. Eastlands, Anfield or The Olympic Stadium would all provide a better atmosphere.

Congratulations to Catalans though who will not give a hoot about the crowd.

I understand why people think that, and obviously given their proximity to Warrington there would have been a bigger crowd and better atmosphere if the game today was at Eastlands or Anfield, but not all finals will be as poorly attended as that one. Wembley weekend might not be what it once was, but once you accept that and permanently downgrade it to a smaller ground in the north you take the first step on the slippery slope towards the Challenge Cup being scrapped altogether I think.

The RFL will though, it's quite expensive to hire Wembley, are you aware of this ?

Daily Mirror's 5 points seem fair: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-le ... p-13138275

Daily Mirror's 5 points seem fair: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-le ... p-13138275

The RFL won't care, they've probably more than covered their costs and their cut of the gate. The majority of the ticket sales are split between the two clubs.

Moving the final from Wembley would be admitting that we've given up.

The answer to the Challenge Cup falls on the RFL and the clubs to drag the sport out of this malaise. If we genuinely have an audience that won't pay £20 for a cup fixture, then we're talking to the wrong audience.

I dont understand why large numbers of Catalans regular home support weren't there. I've heard people say flights were expensive, but they live in Perpignan, not Parramatta. They could have travelled by coach or any number of other method. Hundreds of Liverpool fans travelled by coach to Kiev in May to avoid paying £1000 to fly! I realise Catalans don't have that sized support as no RL club does, but comparing like for like and putting the shoe on the other foot, if that game today was in Barcelona I reckon Wires would have had at least double the number that Catalans had today as an absolute minimum. I understand why they obviously don't come across every other week for Super League away games, but today was the biggest in their history. If I went to their home games regularly I would absolutely not have wanted to miss today.

Yeah, the RFL only lost 2 million quid last season.

Time to move the C.C back to May & maybe to consider the Olympic Stadium, a full stadia over what was witnessed today is preferable to that catastrophe !

Separately to the attendance, well done to Catalans on both today's triumph & more generally their upwards turn from last year's low, best team won !