It will not be decided until next weekend who will advance to this year’s final of the European League of Football (ELF): The Vienna Vikings will face the Paris Musketeers in the first semi-final, while last year’s finalists Stuttgart Surge and defending champions Rhein Fire will face each other in the other. Things will get serious in Gelsenkirchen on September 22nd.
As the ELF announced on Monday, a new spectator record has already been set for the young league. According to the report, 35,000 tickets for the final have already been sold. At the 2023 final, 31,500 fans were in the sold-out Duisburg Arena. The highest number of spectators to date was in Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion, where 32,500 fans came to the Sea Devils’ game against Rhein Fire last year. So even this number will be broken in Gelsenkirchen.
“We are heading full steam ahead towards the climax of the season and the anticipation is growing day by day,” says ELF managing director Zeljko Karajica. “It will be a huge football party for the whole family, in a beautiful stadium with a great atmosphere, the likes of which has never been experienced at a European football match before.”
Commissioner Patrick Esume added: “I already get goosebumps when I think about the final. The two best teams in Europe will meet and I am convinced that they will have a close, thrilling duel at the highest level and will be really celebrated by the people in the stands. It will be a game that the guys on the pitch and around it will never forget.”
The ELF will also hope that ticket sales will perhaps pick up again in the two weeks before the game, when the match-up is finalized. According to the league, more than 48,125 fans would have to come to set the record for spectators at a European football game. That is how many people watched the duel between the Hamburg Sea Devils and the Frankfurt Galaxy in NFL Europe in 2007.
In any case, the ELF will ensure that the total number of spectators (including play-offs) this year will exceed that of 2023, at the latest by the final. A total of around 429,000 people came to the stadiums in that year. In 2024, the number was around 407,000 in the regular season.
