James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

Updated 11.06

RED-FACED RUGBY bosses have claimed that a free ticket offer for the Champions Cup final at Twickenham was a mistake.

Holders Toulon and Clermont Auvergne meet in an all-French final that has left organisers fearing a half-empty stadium.

Twickenham holds 82,000 fans but there could be as many as 30,000 empty seats on Saturday afternoon.

A number of tickets were made available for “free” over the weekend with fans only required to pay a Ticketmaster booking fee.

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The promo was supposed to be restricted as a “buy one, get one free” offer for those who purchased tickets for the Aviva Premiership final but it was mistakenly accessible to the wider public “for a short period,” an EPRC spokesperson told the Express.

This has now been closed and all discount offers and associated offers are linked to a purchase.

Toulon and Clermont also met in the 2013 Heineken Cup final at Lansdowne Road which was fell just short of a sell-out with 50,148 in attendance.

A year earlier, Leinster and Ulster fans filled Twickenham for the only all-Ireland final in the competition’s history.

But less than 29,000 attended the all-French final between Toulouse and Perpignan in Dublin in 2003, and there were over 16,000 empty seats when Toulouse and Stade Francais met at Murrayfield in 2005.

This man is about to play his 5th European final in 5 straight seasons