Liverpool fans clean up! Supporters exploit Austrian team’s eco scheme by hoovering up plastic cups – worth £2.50 each when returned – in huge beer snakes to pay for their trips
Liverpool fans are celebrating a windfall by covering their Champions League trip fares by collecting beer cups in the stands at Austrian side LASK.
Supporters were given £2.50 for each cup they returned – leading some to gather dozens and pose triumphantly with their gigantic ‘beer snakes’.
One Liverpool fan told Daily Mail Sport that they had made as much as £250, roughly enough to cover the cost of the excursion. Others danced in the concourse of the Raiffeisen Arena, with the tower of cups, numbering in the dozens, almost tipping over.
LASK are big pushers of eco-friendly schemes and boast of being the first club in Austria to create a stadium free of plastic bottles. Their stadium was built with ‘sustainable and environmentally friendly construction and materials’.
‘I think I saw one of the nine goals scored,’ said one supporter who had been enjoying the revelry.
One father posted a proud picture of his son’s ‘first day earning money’, claiming he had made almost £170 from his good deed.
Liverpool fans made a quick buck collecting beer cups at their away clash at LASK in Austria (X: @greggmunikwa)
Some collected so many that they claimed they were able to cover the cost of their trip (X: @EPLBible)
Supporters were given around £2.50 for each cup they returned, a policy not so common in English football (X: @LFCmagnus)
It is not the first time Liverpool fans have made a quick buck in this way on their travels.
Sparta Prague also gave fans the opportunity to do the same for their Europa League clash in March 2024.
It was the same policy in Leipzig in October that year when Liverpool visited in the Champions League.
The policy is not widespread within English football but Lewes, who play in the seventh tier, did introduce the scheme in September last year.
On the pitch there was plenty for Liverpool to celebrate as they thrashed the Austrian champions 6-3, with Bradley Barcola scoring a hat-trick.
While frail at the back, the Reds looked electric going forward, with Florian Wirtz in exquisite form and registering an assist.
Young striker Lewis Koumas bagged his first goal of the season – after having two disallowed for offside – as he continued to fill in for the injured Alexander Isak.
Defenders Ronald Araujo and Jeremie Frimpong also got on the scoresheet on a night Andoni Iraola hailed as ‘very good’.
He said of Barcola: ‘I think he played so well today and not just the goals. He had more chances to score, he was always a threat attacking the spaces in behind.
‘In training sometimes you feel when a player is in the zone, and fortunately tonight for us he has shown the level that he has.’
Iraola added on Wirtz: ‘I think he was amazing in possession. I think he had lively passes, good assists, he helped us to control the game, especially in the first half where he was roaming around and finding good spots. It was a good game from Florian.’
