Nine out of ten fans think football prices are too high

While many Premier League clubs have raised the prices of season tickets, nine out of 10 football supporters in the UK think ticket prices are too high, according to a survey by the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF).

The survey asked more than 4000 supporters from 130 different clubs across the United Kingdom, and 73 per cent strongly agreed that season ticket prices are too high and 19 per cent agreed slightly. Only three out of every 100 disagreed and thought prices were not too high.

In the survey, four out of 10 respondents also claimed that they had attended fewer football matches in recent seasons with more than half of those blaming ticket prices for their lack of attendance. 

Malcolm Clarke, chair of the FSF, said “There’s a huge amount of wealth swilling among Premier League clubs thanks to TV rights or sponsorship deals and there’s no excuse to keep charging the prices they often do.

“We’re not asking the football industry to do something out of the goodness of its heart, self-interest should play a part too as those huge TV deals will disappear if stadiums begin to look empty.

“The game is playing Russian roulette when it comes to attracting younger fans who might start voting with their feet to become “pub only” fans, or even turn their backs on the game altogether.”

The FSF survey also looked at supporters’ opinions on other subjects such as goal-lie technology, racism, homophobia and how fans watch football.

The question of whether fans should have the choice to sit or stand found most common ground as 92 per cent of the respondents agreed, while less than one in five agreed that they had experienced or seen homophobic (19 per cent) or racist (18 per cent) abuse in the past year.

Read more from the survey here

The FSF is the nationally-recognised organisation representing more than 200,000 individual fans and supporters’ organisations throughout England and Wales.