Udinese Calcio managing director Franco Collavino gave all the details of the 2021/22 season-ticket campaign exclusively on Udinese Tonight on Monday evening.
“We’ve thought long and hard about this decision while keeping tabs on the constantly evolving situation on a government, club and sporting level.
“We produced a convincing performance to get a point against Atalanta. As you know, Udinese are one of the clubs that has fought the hardest to get as many fans back at Dacia Arena as possible and at Italian stadiums in general. Now that we are expecting to return to normality (100% capacity), we felt it was the right time to kick off our campaign.
“We’ve taken this step after consulting our fan base and taking their wishes into account, which was what gave us the drive to push on with it. The fans’ impetus was key in overcoming the last moments of hesitation.
“We know that so many other clubs are waiting for full stadium capacity to be 100% confirmed and we hope that will be from November, but we wanted to press on with outlining the details in an organised way with passion in order to send out a message of hope to our fans so that they can reclaim their rightful place at Dacia Arena.
“After a difficult period, we felt strongly about making the stadium feel like home for the club’s supporters once again by allowing them to return to the seats where they sat prior to the pandemic.
“The sales period will begin tomorrow (Tuesday) only with a priority window for 2019/20 season-ticket holders, allowing them to confirm their own seats, having missed out on that special feeling so much over the last few seasons.
“The campaign will include all matches starting with Sassuolo, so the clash with Hellas Verona on Wednesday is not part of it. If we’re at 75% capacity by then, we’ve thought of a solution. This would only be problematic in one section of the ground (the Curva Nord), where 5,000 of our 14,000 season-ticket holders in 2019/20 were housed. With current capacity restrictions, there is room for 4,000 seats. Once that figure has been reached, those who confirm their seats in that area will be TEMPORARILY moved to the Tribuna Laterale Nord before returning to their original places as soon as full capacity in that section is permitted.”