Should the Champions League final have a permanent home?

The Uefa Champions League group stage will kick off in September with the usual suspects and the odd surprise qualifier. The competition ends in nine months, on May 21, in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium.
For personal reasons, I’m looking forward to the trip to Moscow. I haven’t been there for 20 years and much has changed during that time. It might all go swimmingly in the Russian capital, despite a scheduled local kick-off time, to appease western European TV audiences, of 10.45pm (forget about a game of two halves; this will be a game of two days).
A few months ago in Athens, I was caught up in the ticketing chaos before the game between Milan and Liverpool. Yes, there were some Liverpool fans without tickets. But there was no excuse for violently herding legitimate ticket-holders around like sheep.
But judging by recent experiences in Athens and Istanbul, further problems are to be expected as UEFA continues with its policy of rotating the Final around its member countries’ biggest stadiums.
Similarly in Istanbul in 2005, the city’s hotels could not cope with the influx of fans, while all roads leading to the Olympic stadium were choked with traffic hours before kick-off, forcing thousands to make the 10km journey from the city centre on foot.
A major cause of the problems was the local policing and stewarding arrangements. It was Athens’ first Final for 13 years, and there had been no dress rehearsal.
Something needs to be done. A simple solution would be to play the Final in the same place every year. The Stade de France in Paris would be the obvious venue.
Every year, we get the same problems, as local officials try to work with UEFA to ensure a smooth-running event. Nobody is particularly to blame; but the awarding of the hosting rights for the Champions League Final, and to a lesser extent the UEFA Cup Final, has become a political and commercial decision taken to appease the various different interests within UEFA.
It is a magnificent football-specific stadium, with no running track, that holds close to 80,000 people. Trains take you there in 15 minutes from the central Gare du Nord. Paris, as one of the world’s most visited cities, has ample hotel accommodation, and it can be reached from most of Europe without the need to fly, making it a more environmentally-friendly venue.
Most importantly, Paris staged the first European Cup Final 51 years ago. What better way for UEFA to safeguard the competition’s heritage than by taking the Final back to its roots?