The organised travel packages have been launched for Rangers supporters intending to travel to support the team in Belgrade in the Europa League.
Red Star will host the second leg of the last 16 tie, with the game taking place on 17th March, one week after the opener at Ibrox.
As usual, there are a number of options for the fans who will be going, in essentially three categories:
The first is the official trip organised by the club’s travel partner CTM Sport who are offering a day trip and overnight stay. The second option is to book with Sport Options who are a long standing private operator with a very good track record. They are offering an overnight stay but unlike the official trip, there is no match ticket as part of their package.
Finally, there is ‘independent’ travel which is essentially do it yourself in terms of your departure point, flights, hotel and everything else. At the same time as this, you need to make an application for your match ticket. This option is favoured by those looking to keep the budget down or to set their own price within what is available whereas the two organised services are much better from a convenience point. For this game in Serbia, most fans taking the independent route will be using two flights each way.
In order to be eligible for a match ticket, you need to at least be a MyGers member, with successful applicants being awarded on a top-down points basis from the club’s much maligned official membership scheme. There has been a lot of clamour for a return of the travel club, which was a standalone system and whilst not perfect, had a lot more merit to it.
Costs
The prices for CTM Sport come in at £429 and £489 respectively, for the day trip and overnight services. Booking with Sport Options will cost a minimum of £425 for their overnighter or you can include a hotel reservation for £469
From talking to some Euro away regulars, a selection of the transit points en route to Belgrade include Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Vienna and Budapest.
An allocation of up to 2500 should be available to Rangers but this is yet to be confirmed and the final number aren’t expected to be as high as the maximum 5% of the stadium that is available to the away support under UEFA rules.