Archive March 6, 2025

Football fans can be tribal. But when it comes to ticket prices, there is unity.

“We are all fighting the same fight on ticket prices”, said Manchester United Supporters ‘ Trust CEO Duncan Drasdo.

“Clubs are exploiting loyalty and fans are united in saying enough is enough”.

When 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs raised their ticket prices before the 2024-25 season, the Football Supporters ‘ Association (FSA) launched a campaign called ‘ Stop Exploiting Loyalty’.

Those protests have grown again this season, with some clubs removing concessionary discounts for the elderly and young people – and teams like Arsenal announcing increases for 2025-26.

The cost of competing for trophies, increasing operational expenses, and the threat of complying with financial regulations, have all been given as reasons for price hikes.

Premier League clubs made a total of almost 1bn euros (£830m) from selling tickets to home matches in 2023, Uefa’s European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report shows.

That figure is growing by about 10% per year, and is almost double that of Spain’s La Liga (£481m) and Germany’s Bundesliga (£430m).

The report uses a mixture of full financial reporting of more than 700 clubs for 2023, plus 2024 figures from 130 of Europe’s biggest clubs.

“What the figures show is that English top-flight clubs are doing very well financially in a whole number of different metrics”, says Tom Greatrex, chair of the FSA.

“Healthy ticket revenue shows people are wanting to go – but also shows the ratcheting up of ticket prices in the past few years. That is manifesting itself in the protests and disenchantment we’ve seen”.

Arsenal and Tottenham’s positions are helped by sales of high-value hospitality seats at modern stadiums in London – one of the world’s most-visited cities.

“What we have seen clubs do through stadium expansion is a huge focus on those seats being hospitality”, says Dan Plumley, senior lecturer in sport finance at Sheffield Hallam University.

“On a basic financial level it makes sense, because you can generate more from that than a baseline seat.

” But if that is stopping your more average fan getting a ticket, that is something clubs are going to have to grapple with. “

The Uefa report paints a similar picture to other research such as the annual Deloitte Money League – with Premier League clubs bringing in far more revenue (£6.2bn in 2023) than other European leagues.

However, English clubs reported a combined loss of £728m before tax.

TV rights deals are showing signs of plateauing, so clubs need to maximise matchday income and commercial and sponsorship revenues to try to offset significant spending on transfers, wages and running costs in order to turn a profit.

The report outlines some eye-watering spending figures:

Chelsea’s 2024 squad was found to be” comfortably the most expensive ever assembled”, 24% higher than the previous record – the 2020 Real Madrid squad. The report also says Chelsea spent almost 2bn euros (£1.7bn) in transfer fees in the five-year period to 2024.

Plumley says:” Each individual club will have its own reasons for doing it, but raising ticket prices doesn’t shift the dial massively in terms of the overall picture of the finances.

Manchester United’s controversial plans to make up to 450 redundancies, cut about 39% of its workforce and “return the club to profitability” have put a sharper focus on how many people are actually needed to run a football club – and the operating costs involved.

While transfer spending remains a club’s biggest outgoing, the report says high inflation in areas such as utilities, plus the wages spent on more employees to expand commercial activity, is biting.

“Operations costs have increased – that’s fair”, Greatrex says. “But increasing ticket prices way beyond the level of inflation, year after year, which is what has started to happen with most clubs in the Premier League – and then trying to claim that PSR or financial fair play are the reason – is the clubs treating people as though they’re idiots”.

Salaries paid to non-footballer staff members have also risen sharply.

The logic behind the rise in staffing numbers varies per club. Brighton, for example, employ a notoriously vast recruitment and scouting operation.

The report states that employee growth can be explained by clubs ‘ desire to wring more from commercial and sponsorship deals.

Across Europe, income from commercial and sponsorship deals has risen by 39% since 2019.

“Commercial income is almost untapped in terms of potential and there is no restriction on the number of deals you can sign”, Plumley says.

“But you have to throw more resource at that.

” There are more roles now in football clubs than ever before. Some of them are quite forward thinking.

Jacob Fearnley missed out on a meeting with fellow Briton Jack Draper after losing on his Indian Wells debut to rising star Joao Fonseca.

Knowing a victory would lead to a second-round match against his childhood rival, the 81st-ranked Fearnley led by a break in the deciding set of a thrilling three-set contest.

However, 18-year-old Fonseca recovered to win five games in a row and clinch a 6-2 1-6 6-3 victory.

Draper, seeded 13th, received a first-round bye and will face the Brazilian teenager on Saturday.

Britain’s Emma Raducanu followed Fearnley on to the main court at Indian Wells, taking on Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima in her first-round match.

It is the 22-year-old’s first appearance since a disturbing stalking incident in Dubai last month.

No player has climbed up the ATP rankings more than Fearnley over the past year, with the 23-year-old Scot moving from outside the top 500 into the top 90.

Fonseca, however, has also enjoyed his own meteoric rise.

Ranked a place above Fearnley at 80th in the world, the teenager is creating a serious buzz in the tennis world, with many tipping him to become a Grand Slam champion.

The excitement has largely been down to his power from the baseline, with the increasingly regular sight of explosive winners leaving fans in the stadium agog, as well as creating impressive clips for social media.

This ability was shown in an impressive opening set where Fonseca settled quicker than Fearnley in a testing Californian desert wind.

The ferocity of Fearnley’s forehand increased, finding more speed and depth to trouble Fonseca, while also stepping further into the court to attack the Brazilian’s second serve.

The adjustments were illustrated by three whopping forehand winners – including one at 89mph – which secured a double break on his way to levelling the match.

Fearnley’s momentum enabled him to move an early break up in the decider – but Fonseca showed he possesses the mental strength, as well as the technical talent, needed to climb even higher in the rankings.

Fonseca reasserted his authority in the baseline exchanges, applying enough pressure on Fearnley’s serve to draw out two double faults and break back for 3-3.

Great Britain won mixed 4x400m relay bronze as Femke Bol anchored hosts the Netherlands to the first gold of the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn.

Dutch star Bol, 25, took over in fourth position but delivered the title ahead of Belgium in a time of three minutes 15.63 seconds to loud cheers inside the Omnisport Stadium.

The British quartet featuring Alastair Chalmers, Emily Newnham, Joshua Faulds and Lina Nielsen clocked 3: 16.49 to make the podium in an event making its championship debut.

Britons Georgia Hunter Bell, Revee Walcott-Nolan and Neil Gourley progressed to Friday night’s 1500m finals on the opening night of action.

Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Hunter Bell, the strong favourite for the title as the fastest European this year, controlled her heat from start to finish and won in 4: 11.31.

“Job done now and I’m ready for tomorrow. I like the heats, to get a run out and settle the nerves. But you need to make sure you stay out of trouble”, Hunter Bell told BBC Sport.

She will be joined in the women’s final by Walcott-Nolan, who placed second in her heat in 4: 14.38.

Gourley will have his sights set on upgrading his 2023 silver after he won his heat in 3: 40.24 to join world record holder Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the final.

Olympic 5, 000m champion Ingebrigtsen clocked 3: 37.49 as he made a winning start in his bid for a third consecutive 1500m and 3, 000m double at the championships, an achievement which would see him equal the men’s record of seven European indoor titles.

Bol, the world 400m hurdles champion and indoor 400m world record holder, has chosen to compete in the relay events only, with just two weeks until the World Indoor Championships take place in Nanjing, China.

But despite taking the decision not to defend her individual 400m title here, the home favourite still has a significant role to play in Apeldoorn.

A volunteer ticket scanner nine years ago when Amsterdam hosted the 2016 European Championships, Bol has since become one of athletics ‘ biggest stars and there was an air of inevitability to match the excitement when she received the baton.

Having helped the host nation win the first gold on offer, the four-time Olympic medallist will seek to bring the curtain down with another triumph in the women’s 4x400m relay – the final event of the championships – on Sunday.

Nielsen held off Spain’s Daniela Fra to get Britain’s 42-strong squad off to a successful start, but was unable to chase down Belgium’s Helena Ponette as Bol moved clear.