The cost of supporting a premiership football club
I’ve found an interesting peice of research by Virgin Money, apparently they publish a Football Fans Infaltion Index, every 3 months which covers the costs of things like a gallon of petrol, match tickets, train tickets, food, alchohol and football shirts. Virgin Money poll over 2000 football fans to understand their spending habits and how much they spend, of course, over a year.
Across all footballing divisions the average cost of following your team for a year is £1080 according to the new poll research from Virgin. They say that’s equivalent to approximately 5 per cent of the average annual salary.
As you might expect the average price for Premiership fans was more like £3,000 and that’s just for match tickets let alone the cost of travel and food, over a year I’d estimate that figure hits £5,000 easily. Around 7 per cent of football fans end up spending between £300 and £500 a year on club merchandise so scarves, hats, shirts and so on.
I remember the football seasons of the early nineties when a ticket cost around £10, in fact I’ve still got some of the ticket stubs. Virgin say that £10 then is equivalent to around £16 today, taking into account rising salaries. The cheapest match tickets today start at £30 - £35. If you want to get to a champions league match the cheapest tickets I’ve seen today are around £40 and the further your team progresses in the tournament the more it will cost you.
Chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, Malcolm Clarke, said: “We applaud those clubs taking action to bring down ticket prices. We also welcome the Football League’s ‘Fans of the Future’ initiative.
“However those clubs, particularly in the Premier League, who have put them up this season like Manchester United, Spurs and West Ham United, should hang their heads in shame. With the huge new broadcasting deal what possible excuse can there be for making football even more unaffordable?
“How can football possibly justify more than doubling ticket prices in real terms at a time when the game is swimming in television money? A time will come soon when football will look around at all the empty spaces in the stands and ask itself, ‘Where did they all go?’ That’s a real worry.”
The real worry for me is that most football fans would probably get into debt rather than miss out on supporting their team and in the current financial climate spending thousands of pounds on football matches could lead to a financial meltdown for the average football fan.
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