PRICED OUT OF THE TERRACE

Saturday, 17th October 2026, 60,817 fans packed into the Etihad to watch Manchester City take on Ipswich in the Premier League. A new club record. Three days later, 20,000 seats remained empty for their Champions League clash with AEK Athens. A third of the stadium.

Granted, AEK don’t have the glamour of your PSGs, your Bayern Munichs, Europe’s elite. But neither do Ipswich, who were playing second-tier football this time last year.

So what explains such a drastic drop in the number of bums on seats? How has the pinnacle of European football become a tough sell to its own supporters? Tickets for Champions League nights, under the lights, were once hard to come by. Impossible to get hold of. Like gold dust. Now they’re struggling to give them away.

Rival fans will point towards a club whose fan base just isn’t that big. And whilst there may be an element of truth to those claims, the reality is most fans just can’t afford it. The working man has been priced out of the game. In the space of just 17 days City played five home games, across three competitions. That’s a lot of football, in a short period of time, just weeks out from Christmas. It’s no surprise, then, that attendances at specific games are sparse. Fans are having to be more selective. Pick and choose which games they attend. And it’s not just ticket prices that influence supporter decisions these days. Travel is another key factor. Train tickets cost a fucking bomb, and that’s being polite. Add food, a couple of pints and a programme – if your club’s still doing them – then it all adds up. A midweek Champions League game, for a family of four, could set you back £150, minimum. That’s scandalous.

It’s not just Cityzens who are suffering, mind. Fans of the five other teams that make up the traditional big six in the Premier League are paying, on average, £74 per ticket, per game. That’s more than I spend on the big shop for the week. Last season Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs each generated at least 20% more in ticket revenue than they did the season before. They’re cashing in. Taking the piss out of us all. Yeah, operating costs have increased. Everything costs more. But you don’t see players taking a pay-cut do you? Sacrificing a percentage of their multi-million pound contracts. Nahh. It’s always fans who are hit the hardest, in the pocket.

There’s never an attempt by clubs to make the game more affordable. More accessible for local fans. Instead they’d rather maximise profits. Keep ticket prices as high as they can. Knowing full well a new emerging market, a new type of fan, will snap them up. The tourist. They’ll pay anything to watch Premier League football. Money’s no object, it seems, and commercial teams of the big clubs know it. In fact, some clubs would happily get shut of season tickets and regular fans in favour of filling grounds with supporters from overseas and selling them premium packages. Getting them in hospitality. The prawn sandwich brigade. Getting a retired club legend to walk round the lounges signing autographs, taking selfies and giving a little speech. Make it a day to remember for them all. They’ll probably do all the big six. Compare packages and that. Fair play if that’s your thing. But that’s not proper football. Nahh. Knocking about with a half ‘n’ half scarf. Videoing yourself in the stands. It’s over commercialisation of the game, and it’s killing the atmosphere.

In the EFL it’s different. You don’t get the tourists. The day trippers. But then it’s not cheap either. Or not as cheap as you’d expect. For second, third or fourth tier football where the standard’s significantly worse than the Premier League. Where the facilities aren’t always as well maintained, you’re still looking at £30-£45 for some tickets. Should be half that, at least. Yet the main core of support for EFL clubs continue turning up. Continue supporting their clubs. Making sacrifices elsewhere in their day-to-day lives. That’s commitment, is that. For teams that haven’t played Premier League football in the last decade, their supporter base won’t have changed much. It’s your locals. The lads and lasses who are there through thick and thin. Who turn up every week, even when the team’s playing shite, when they’re bottom of the league. Because that’s what you do when you support a team. You don’t give up on them.

The atmosphere and makeup of an EFL crowd’s different to that in the Premier League. Numbers aren’t topped up by your tourists. Nahh. Nobody from America, Japan or anywhere in the world has any business being in Blackburn to watch Rovers vs. Stoke on a Tuesday night. Do well to find Rovers and Stoke fans who’d fancy that. I didn’t. And i’ve a season ticket. Which is why something needs to be done. Why the young lads, knocking about in three stripes, C.P. Company goggle hats and Marshall Artist jackets need looking after. They can’t be priced out of the game. Get it sorted.