With more than 50,000 English supporters expected to descend on Moscow for the Champions League final, Uefa say they have struck a deal with Russian authorities to ease the visa problems that are threatening to cause chaos.

European football's governing body hope to officially announce the plans in the next 48 hours, and they hope to stem the growing fears surrounding the final on May 21. Uefa say the new system will link entry to Russia with tickets to the match and with each club expecting to receive 23,500 tickets for the match.

William Gaillard, Uefa's director of communications, said: "The Russians have shown great flexibility and hopefully within the next 48 hours we will be announcing a more simplified procedure for visas to make it easier for fans to get to Moscow. There are different possibilities but we are close to achieving what we want. We just have to make some choices, together with the Russian authorities. If we had reached a conclusion earlier we may not have been able to obtain as good an agreement as we hope to have now."

Russian police have already begun planning for the arrival of the tens of thousands of English supporters expected to make the trip to Moscow and Gaillard says the authorities will be ready.

"The Russian police have been helped by the English police to a great extent and we do not envisage security problems in Moscow - in terms of size it is a similar event to two large clubs going to London for an FA Cup final. It is not the first time there has been such a situation for the Champions League final - we had AC Milan v Juventus in Manchester and Real Madrid v Valencia in Paris. The main issues for us are the airport capacities and air transport capacity because there will be more than 50,000 people coming from Britain and all by air."

Meanwhile, the Premier League have said that while an all-English Champions League final in Moscow will present "logistical challenges", they will not be asking for the game to be moved to Wembley.

Following Manchester United's victory over Barcelona last night, the Premier League is guaranteed both finalists in Moscow on May 21. Despite spiralling travel cots, visa problems and the potential for violence between rival sets of supporters the Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive, says there will be no attempt to move the final.

"Absolutely not - imagine if a Champions League final, or a major event, was scheduled to take place at Wembley and two Italian teams or Spanish teams got through," Scudamore said. "At the end of the day it's Uefa's competition and Uefa will know the security issues. There are host cities who bid for these events. It is an important part of football development in Moscow and Russia and therefore there is no way we would get involved in suggesting that.

"We, and the clubs, would offer any help to Uefa to use our experience to make sure everything goes off smoothly as possible. Clearly it is a logistical challenge for fans. But it is a challenge whoever is involved and it will be an exciting challenge. There are going to be stories to tell grandchildren about how you got there, and how it all happened - it is going to be fantastic."

Scudamore said that an all-Premier League final demonstrated the league could claim to be the strongest in the world.

"I think it is a credit to the clubs - it is the players that have done it, it is the management of those teams that have done it," he said. "Clearly we think the Premier League is a decent platform from which to launch a European campaign such as this and well done to all of them. I can tell you that we are very happy. Here we are 21 days away from knowing the Champions League will have an English winner - we can't even say that about the FA Cup!"

David Gill, the Manchester United chief executive, flies to Moscow to meet Uefa officials tomorrow, with the matter of visas high on the agenda, though he hopes the situation will be clarified in the next few days.

“The visa issue has been there for a while,” Gill said. “We had discussions with Uefa and the local organising committee along with the other semi-finalists.

“If you are on an organised trip, your ticket will be your visa. The actual specifics and fine details will be addressed in the next day or so and then we will communicate with the fans.

“Everyone in Uefa from Michel Platini to the local organising committee recognise in order for it to be a showcase, which it clearly will be, you have to ease entry into the country while not totally doing away with what the Russian authorities require.”