Chelsea fans Mark Bougourd and John Hughes on their return from seeing their team lose to Manchester United in Wednesday’s Champions League final. (Picture by Daniel Guerin, 0583635)

MOSCOW was not equipped to host the Champions League final, according to returning football fans.

Guernsey Chelsea Supporters Club treasurer John Hughes said the trip to Wednesday night’s game had still been a great experience despite his side’s defeat by Manchester United. He said Moscow was a poor place to stage such a showpiece game.

‘The organisation was poor, the pitch was poor and the match officials were poor,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t reflect well on Uefa, but then they’ve never cared about the fans.’ There were only four small catering outlets in a fan zone at the ground and they could not handle the number of people who turned up, he said. Some bars had only two people working and many supporters could not get served.

‘There were thousands of Russian police and military. It seemed that everybody there wears a uniform and they basically stood around in groups smoking,’ said Mr Hughes, 41, a communications manager at Specsavers.