As I stumbled, bleary-eyed and confused, from the world’s worst taxi into the foyer of a hotel that seemed more like an amusement arcade in Margate, I was met with a handshake from one of my fellow journalists. “Welcome to hell,” he said with a grin that seemed to speak of cabin fever.

I have a worrying feeling that the word “hell” is going to crop up in more than a few reminiscences of the 2008 Champions League final. As a group of journalists congregated in the bar later in the evening, we did little but compare horror stories about our journeys to Moscow and, in particular, about what Uefa had, in some sort of sick joke, designated the “official media hotel”.

To cut my story short, the highlight was a nightmarish journey up and down (and up and down and up and down) the freeways of Moscow in a clapped out two-door Lada, driven by a young man whose lack of driving skills was surpassed only by his lack of direction. Sitting in the passenger seat alongside him, with my bulky suitcase on the back seat, I was terrified to discover that the seat-belts did not work. After countless terrifying U-turns and a couple of stops to ask for directions, we rolled up outside the hotel and my face dropped for a second time.

While my colleague Martin Samuel, Sports Writer of the Year, is being put up in one of Moscow’s finest hotels, on the edge of Red Square, I, provincial hack Oliver Kay, am writing this in a fleapit somewhere – no one seems quite sure where – on the edge of the city. On the basis that no publicity is bad publicity, I am not going to name and shame it, but suffice to say that, if this really is Uefa’s official media hotel, it appears to be a revenge attack for some perceived slight in the past. As I got out of the car, having paid more than £50 for the privilege of the ride, the taxi driver decided he did after all know some English. “Good luck,” he said – and I don’t think he was talking about the football.

The football? Ah yes, that is what we are here for, but, this being Moscow, it is also a story of logistical difficulties, bureaucratic nonsense and, above all, rip-offs. As journalists, with most of our expenses paid, we are the lucky ones, but there are Chelsea and Manchester United supporters who have paid more than £500 a night for the privilege of staying in comparable flea-pits or £100 for a taxi from the airport. Many imagine that the entire trip – flights, hotels, taxis, match tickets, visas that they ended up not needing – will cost them at least £2,000. Little wonder that so many supporters have reluctantly decided to stay at home and watch on television.

Journalistically, today brings the final pre-match press conferences, with Sir Alex Ferguson and Avram Grant holding court at the Luzhniki Stadium at 6pm and 7pm local time respectively, but, more significantly, there is the challenge to try to find out the teams that the two managers will pick. Getting the team – and getting it right – for a big final such as this is always a challenge, one that requires diligence, persistence, good contacts and, above all, an afternoon spent with your mobile phone to your ear. This being rip-off Russia, there will be some pretty big telephone bills heading the way of the London newspaper offices in the coming weeks.