Tottenham vs Chelsea: Why are there empty seats for Premier League clash at Wembley?

Spurs have so far filled 70,000 seats but have been prevented from putting the remaining tickets on general sale to stop away supporters from buying seats in the home section

Wembley can hold 90,000 fans for a football match (Getty)

Up to 20,000 seats could be left empty at Wembley Stadium for Tottenham’s Premier League clash against Chelsea on Sunday due to security-based restrictions.

Spurs have so far filled 70,000 seats at Wembley, which can hold 90,000 fans for a football match, but the club has been prevented from putting the remaining tickets on general sale to stop away supporters from buying seats in the home section.

As reported by The Times, the decision to impose such a restriction was made following security talks between representatives from Brent Council, the Metropolitan Police, the London Ambulance Service and the London Fire Brigade.

The remaining tickets may only be sold to fans who registered on Tottenham’s website ahead of July 1.

The club are optimistic of selling more tickets in the next few days but must resign to having a large section of the national stadium's upper tier being closed for one of the biggest matches of the season.

The “restricted general sale” limitation is standard practice for fixtures that are deemed high-risk events, as is the case with a high-profile London derby between rivals Chelsea and Tottenham.

Tickets for most Premier League matches are rarely released on general sale due the large numbers of season ticket-holders and members at each club, but Tottenham’s temporary move to Wembley has opened up certain matches to casual supporters.

Tottenham will play all their home league games at Wembley this season (Getty)

Spurs were forced to play their Champions League fixtures at Wembley last season and sold out all three matches against Monaco, Bayer Leverkusen and CSKA Moscow.

They notably set an English attendance club record of 85,512 fans for their 1-0 defeat by Leverkusen in November of last year.