Premier League fans prepare to rack up air miles in Champions League
Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur fans could be racking up the air miles this season in the Champions League after far-flung Kairat Almaty and Bodo/Glimt booked their spots in the league phase.
The same applies to supporters of Liverpool, Manchester City and Newcastle United as the Premier League will have an unprecedented six clubs in the main part of European football’s top club competition.
All 36 teams will find out their eight opponents for the league phase on Thursday when the draw is made, but already followers of English clubs may be reaching for Google Maps and Skyscanner to plot some drastic possible away days.
Kairat in Kazakhstan are the easternmost team ever to reach the main phase of the Champions League, having eliminated Scottish title winners Celtic on penalties in Tuesday’s play-off round.
Almaty is approximately 3,500 miles east of London and therefore closer to Beijing than the next most eastern team in the competition, Turkey’s Galatasaray.
Direct flights are not available and the quickest route, travelling via Istanbul, still takes more than 11 hours and costs over £500 return.
Kairat Almaty are the second side from the world’s largest landlocked country to qualify for the Champions League proper, after Astana, who are some 600 miles to the north-west.
Champions League’s furthest-flung clubs
Bodo-Glimt, meanwhile, are the northernmost team ever to reach the competition’s group stage or league phase, having progressed from the play-off by beating Sturm Graz this week.
The Norwegian outfit are from Bodo, just north of the Arctic Circle, which has zero hours of daylight in December and temperatures as low as -18C.
Again, there are no direct flights from London to Bodo, with a journey – usually via Oslo or Stockholm – typically taking five to six hours.
It is much cheaper to reach than Almaty, however, with return trips from as little as £200.
The southernmost team in this season’s Champions League main phase is Cypriot club Pafos, who qualified for the first time by navigating three qualifying rounds.
Any English clubs drawn to play them can look forward to cheap flights costing as little as £83 return, albeit a five-hour journey to the Mediterranean island.
For completists, the westernmost club is Sporting Lisbon, who welcomed fans of both Arsenal and Manchester City in last season’s competition.