Messi, Ronaldo Fail to Attract Fans to Old Trafford Match

By Tariq Panja  

Photographer: Gerard Julien/AFP via Getty Images

Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, left, and Barcelona's Lionel Messi, right, during the... Read More

Soccer’s two best players aren’t enough to persuade fans to buy tickets to see Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal play Lionel Messi’s Argentina at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, where organizers have sold 15,000 seats in the 75,731-seat stadium.
Organizers need between 45,000 and 50,000 sales to meet targets for the Nov. 18 exhibition game, according to Leo Morales, project manager at the game’s organizer World Eleven.
Tickets cost 40 pounds ($63.20). Renting the stadium, where Ronaldo played for United from 2003-09 before leaving for Real Madrid, cost $1 million and each team is getting $1.5 million, Morales said, while television sales are “only worth a few hundred thousand dollars.”
“I don’t know why we haven’t had more sales,” Morales said by phone from Manchester. “Ronaldo is coming back to Manchester United and Lionel Messi is the best player.”
Ronaldo is the reigning World Player of the Year, an award Messi, who plays for Spanish rival Barcelona, has won a record four times. The two played each other last month, when Ronaldo scored once in Real’s 3-1 league win over Barcelona.
Messi was named the best player at this year’s World Cup in Brazil, where his team lost 1-0 to Germany in the final.
Attendance at Manchester United’s Nov. 8 match against Crystal Palace at Old Trafford was 75,325.
(An earlier version of this story had an incorrect time reference in first paragraph.)