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Travel & accessibility details for four key Champions League ties

The Champions League takes centre stage next week, with the remaining last-16 ties scheduled to be played on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fans will be busy putting the finishing touches to their travel plans for four games that promise to deliver a feast of top-class European football.

Given the quartet of matches will be played in some of the biggest cities in Europe, most supporters will have little difficulty navigating from home to the respective stadiums.

However, as highlighted by this recent article on the access inside Champions League stadiums, some fans will be catered for much better than others when the games are played.

After making their way through local or international travel systems, fans with access issues would hope to be well looked after when they reach the stadium.

The game between Manchester City and RB Leipzig provides the best conditions for those fans, with the Etihad Stadium currently the most accessible Champions League stadium.

City’s ground is ahead of every other venue in the competition this season in terms of accessibility, taking top points in almost every category analysed.

The Etihad has the highest number of wheelchair seats (255), a whopping 210 more than Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium that has a significantly higher capacity.

City also have an Assistive Hearing System installed and Sensory Suites, making it one of the most well-designed sports stadiums in the world.

By contrast, fans with accessibility issues heading to the Madrid versus Liverpool game would be well advised not to expect too much when they visit the Bernabeu.

While Madrid’s famed underground system makes it easy to get around the city, things take a turn for the worse when fans arrive at the stadium.

There are just 45 wheelchair seats available for fans, which equates to just 0.05% of the capacity. Other accessibility features are also limited.

Naples also boasts a modern transport network, but the city’s football club fails to match up to its Champions League rivals in the accessibility stakes.

The Diego Armando Maradona Stadium is ranked 30th out of the 32 venues in terms of accessibility, with only Maccabi Haifa Viktoria Plzen below them in the list.

By contrast, visitors Eintracht Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park finished comfortably in the top half of the stadiums of this year’s Champions League clubs.

Porto’s stadium does not fare too badly for accessibility, offering many of the facilities examined apart from an Assistive Hearing System and Sensory Suites.

Given the presence of the Porto Metro in the city, fans of the home team and Inter Milan will have little difficulty travelling to the Estadio do Dragao.

Fans of European clubs who make it through to the quarter-finals will probably hope to draw Premier League sides at that stage of the competition.

As mentioned earlier, Man City’s Etihad Stadium is the most accessible stadium in the Champions League, with Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur rounding off an English-themed top four.

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