‘Impossible’: UEFA issues West Ham fans warning as 20,000 travel to Prague for Europa Conference League final

West Ham United fans have been warned that it is 'impossible' that ticket resale sites have the number of tickets being listed ahead of the Europa Conference League final against Fiorentina on Wednesday night.

The Hammers were allocated 5,780 tickets for the final at the Fortuna Arena, which is a little over a quarter of the stadium's 19,370 capacity.

With such a measly allocation, it is reported that as many as 20,000 West Ham fans are planning on travelling to Prague, some to soak up the atmosphere and some in hope of scoring a last-minute ticket.

Over the weekend, it emerged that one resale site had 1,500 tickets for sale ahead of Wednesday's match, which was a cause of concern for fans given the rising prevalence of ticket scams.

The West Ham United Supporters' Trust and Football Supporters Europe raised the issue with UEFA and have now issued a warning to fans looking to buy online. UEFA told the groups that it was "impossible that website has 1200 tickets since more or less the total number of tickets which available on general sites" and that the site was "definitely a scam".

PC Andy Sheldon of the Met Police added: "As I have said before and will again, please be mindful when buying tickets on the secondary market as people make a lot out of others' desperation for a ticket... and sometimes the tickets don’t even exist."

Czech police are putting an extra 250 officers in place in Prague ahead of the meeting between West Ham and Fiorentina with one officer reportedly telling PA there had already been “a couple of incidents” involving Hammers fans and that they are “prepared for trouble”.

Fan parks are being set up in the city centre to host the thousands of fans travelling without a ticket with shuttle buses running straight from the airports to these areas.

UEFA has described the host city and stadium as 'compact' and has raised the minimum capacity for the Europa Conference League final stadium to 30,000 from next year as a result.

Former West Ham star Joe Cole has spoken out about the situation. He told the i: “You’d like common sense to prevail on these types of things. I think last year when Roma and Feyenoord played that should have made Uefa think about how much football means to people. People want to be there to watch their team play.

“The only sad thing [about the final] is that there is not going to be more than 6,000 fans getting tickets. It should be at a place like Wembley. This game would have filled out Wembley, the Nou Camp, the Bernabeu, anywhere, it really could.”