The man selling scarves outside the Puskás Aréna on Üllői út will have been there since seven in the morning. He will have Arsenal ones on the left, Paris Saint-Germain ones on the right, and the kind of Champions League-branded half-and-half effort in the middle that nobody buys unless they are buying a gift for someone they do not know very well. The stadium, completed in 2019 at a cost of approximately €600 million, is one of the newest in Europe, and on the last Saturday in May it will host its first Champions League final. Arsenal will be there. PSG will be there. Budapest will be ready for them.
The ground itself
The Puskás Aréna sits in the XIV district, on the Pest side of the city, roughly six kilometres east of the Danube. It holds 67,215, a capacity that UEFA will trim to approximately 64,000 for the final to accommodate broadcast and hospitality infrastructure. The sightlines are good throughout. The lower tiers are steep and close to the pitch. The upper tiers, particularly behind the goals, are a long way up but angled sharply enough that the view remains honest. There are no running tracks, no athletics legacy. This is a football stadium built for football.
Arsenal’s ticket allocation, per UEFA’s standard final structure, will be 20,000. Those will be distributed through the club’s loyalty points system and sold in phases, with season-ticket holders and away-credit holders prioritised. UEFA will retain approximately 24,000 for sponsors, partners, and commercial packages. The remaining allocation goes to PSG and to the neutral ballot. If you do not have a ticket by mid-May, you will not be getting one through the official route. The touts outside the ground will be there regardless. The prices they charge are not, at this stage, a matter of public record, but Budapest’s police have historically been less aggressive about enforcement than their counterparts in London or Paris.
Getting there
Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport, terminal 2, sits twenty-four kilometres southeast of the city centre. Ryanair and Wizz Air both fly direct from London, Manchester, and Liverpool. Flight prices in the week of the final, as of the semi-final second legs, were already well above the usual June fare for the route. Supporters who have not booked should expect to pay a premium and should book soon. The airport bus, route 100E, runs to Deák Ferenc tér in the city centre and costs 2,200 HUF, roughly £4.80.
The ground is served by the M3 metro line. The nearest station is Puskás Ferenc Stadion, which is a three-minute walk from the entrance. The M3 has been undergoing partial closures for renovation for several years, and supporters should check schedules on the BKK website in the week before the match. Tram 1 runs along the Grand Boulevard and connects to the stadium from the west. Taxis in Budapest are inexpensive by Western European standards, but the surge on a final night will be considerable. Bolt operates in the city and is generally more reliable than hailing on the street.
The city
Budapest is a fine city for a weekend, and the final lands on a Saturday, which means most travelling supporters will have the best part of three days. The ruin bars of the VII district, Szimpla Kert chief among them, will be full of English and French voices from the Thursday onward. The thermal baths, Széchenyi and Gellért, are open throughout the weekend and are worth the entry fee. Food is inexpensive. A meal for two in a decent restaurant in the V district, with wine, will cost less than thirty pounds. A pint of Dreher or Arany Ászok, the local lagers, is roughly 700 to 900 HUF, somewhere between £1.50 and £2.
The city has hosted European finals before. The 2023 Europa League final between Sevilla and Roma was played here, and the infrastructure held. The 2021 Super League final, between Chelsea and Villarreal, was also here, in front of a reduced-capacity crowd during COVID restrictions. The Puskás Aréna is not new to this. The city is not new to this. What it has not had, until the last Saturday in May, is the biggest club match in European football, the one where the anthem plays and the players stand in a line and the cameras circle the roof.
Arsenal have not been to a European Cup final since 2006, when they lost to Barcelona in Paris. PSG have not been to one since 2020, when they lost to Bayern Munich in Lisbon. One of those records will end, and it will end in a stadium named after a man who scored 84 goals in 85 international matches for Hungary and whose name, in Budapest, still carries the weight of what football meant to a country that invented parts of the game and then watched the world take it. The travelling Arsenal supporters will arrive early and leave late. The city will accommodate them. The football will be the football.
