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Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma after letting in a goal during the Champions League soccer match between Bodo/Glimt and Manchester City in Bodo, Norway. (NTB via AP)
Manchester City’s squad have announced that they will pay from their own pockets to refund the ticket costs for 374 of the club’s supporters who had travelled to Norway for the Champions League game against Bodo/Glimt on Tuesday which ended in a 3-1 humbling for the Premier League giants.
Kasper Hogh scored twice while Jens Petter Hauge banged in a sensational third goal for the host club. Rayan Cherki managed to score Man City’s consolation goal. The result was made worse by the fact that City lost their previous game to Manchester United in the Premier League. The club also saw midfielder Rodri pick up a red card after receiving two yellow cards in the space of 53 seconds.
Rodri will miss next week’s game against Galatasaray, which City must win to harbour any hope of ending among the top-eight in the Champions League to avoid a play off to enter the next round.
Manchester City played with their youngest-ever Champions League starting XI which had four players aged 21 or under because Pep Guardiola’s team was missing eight injured players besides new signing Antoine Semenyo (who is ineligible to play in the group phase of the Champions League), and the team captain Bernardo Silva, because he was suspended for the game.
The sub-zero temperatures at the Arctic Circle also played a part in compounding Manchester City’s misery. But Man City should have still won the game given their financial heft: as the BBC noted, Bodo/Glimt posted revenues of £52 million in their 2024 accounts while Manchester City reported a hefty £694 million in their accounts last year.
“Covering the cost of these tickets for the fans who travelled to Bodo is the least we can do,” read a statement from Manchester City’s captaincy group which included Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Rodri and Erling Haaland.
“Our supporters mean everything to us. We know the sacrifice that our fans make when they travel across the world to support us home and away and we will never take it for granted. They are the best fans in the world. We also recognise that it was a lot of travelling for the fans who supported us in the freezing cold throughout a difficult evening for us on the pitch,” the statement added.
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Erling Haaland: ‘That was embarrassing’
An away ticket for the game in Norway cost about £25. This means Manchester City players will fork out around £9,357 towards paying back those who made the trip to the Arctic Circle.
Manchester City’s Erling Haaland attends a training session in Bodo, Norway ahead the Champions League soccer match against Bodø/Glimt on Tuesday. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB Scanpix via AP)
Norwegian star Erling Haaland, who has now gone a month without scoring from open play with only one penalty in eight games, said that the result was “embarrassing”.
“Bodo played some incredible football and it was deserved. I don’t know what to say. What I can say is sorry,” he said in a chat with TNT Sports.
A report in the BBC noted that Glimt has a population of around 55,000. Just a decade back, Bodo/Glimt were competing in the second tier of Norwegian football. In the time since, the club has won the Norwegian league title four times in the past six years while ending as runners-up on the other two occasions.
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