The work of FSA-member groups on our #StopExploitingLoyalty campaign has put the issue of top-flight ticket pricing firmly in the media spotlight – and it isn’t going away.

The campaign seeks to highlight the problem of rising top-flight ticket prices, attacks on concessionary rates and the general sense that matchgoer loyalty is not valued. Prices in the top-flight have risen by around 800% since the early 90s.

While column inches and media debates play an important role in making change happen there’s no doubt that discussions with decision makers are necessary too. 

We’re regularly in contact with the Premier League, and our supporter groups liaise directly with their clubs, but we thought it’d be interesting to give individual supporters and FSA members (cough cough – join for free here) a taste of what that involves.

Supporter Engagement

Our last formal meeting with the Premier League took place at the end of November 2024 as we took fan reps from various top-flight supporter groups to meet with Premier League officials including the league’s chief executive Richard Masters (a similar process led by the FSA takes place in the EFL, National League and women’s game).

The agenda covered a range of items – the Football Governance Bill, fixture scheduling, VAR – and ticket pricing was obviously on there. You can read the minutes here. Already expensive home ticket prices in the top-flight are going up while club-after-club is attacking concessionary rates. 

The Premier League provided an overview of ticketing across the league, although not all data from the 2024-25 season had been collated so some of the figures were projections as they don’t have “access to volume sales data provided by clubs later in the season.”

We’re often asked by media outlets for a definitive “list” of ticket prices in the Premier League but it’s really, really difficult to provide an accurate dataset because of the range of categories, fluctuating offers and pricing obscured by membership schemes.

That even the Premier League itself didn’t have such information in November 2024 (around six months after season tickets for 2024-25 had started to go on sale) shows how difficult it is to pull together – and how clubs can do things which escape attention.

As one of our members who recently tried to collate this data pointed out, a lot of information is needed to calculate the figures accurately. Despite being from a large supporters’ group his club wouldn’t confirm how many seats were in each category or the season ticket/general admission sales figures. Clubs often cite commercial confidentiality around these issues.

Some of the Premier League’s ticketing rules are 25-years-old and we feel they are in need of a review – particularly in relation to concessionary offers. We believe league-wide rules should be in place to ensure kids, young adults and OAPs aren’t priced out. Too many clubs are attacking these categories while raising prices across the board.

Ticket data

So what of the numbers the Premier League released? You can see the full set here (Appendix A) and we’ve highlighted a few stats below. 

The Premier League says:

• Season ticket holders account for 75% of tickets sold;
• Average price paid is claimed to be £38;
• Prices are estimated to have increased by around 7% since 2023-24;
• Prices have risen below the rate of inflation since 2017-18;
• Away tickets are currently capped at £30;
• 99% of tickets have been sold so far this season.

We have many follow up questions for the Premier League and will be putting those to them in the near future.

Season ticket sales accounting for the majority of ticket sales is no surprise – and those supporters receive the associated savings you’d expect comes with such a commitment.

But does the £38 average figure include tickets sold on a match-by-match basis which are often far, far higher? We’d like to see the separate cost for season ticket match cost versus individual match ticket cost.

Does the £38 include any associated membership fee, which is to all intents and purposes mandatory at many clubs if you want to buy a Premier League ticket? A “member” paying £50 per annum in fees could very reasonably consider that a ticketing expense. 

Looking at the inflation increase is interesting with the Premier League choosing a fairly arbitrary 2017-18 data point to argue that tickets have risen below the rate of inflation. Of course that’s a rise from a very high starting point, so expensive ticket prices have still become more expensive, and we can all choose our own preferred starting point.

How about 1992 when the Premier League was formed? Since then a ticket on the Kop at Anfield has gone up by 875%. If a pint of lager had gone up at the same rate it’d cost £11.80.

Ok, ok we hear you say, 1992 was a long time ago and football is in many ways unrecognisable from that time. So let’s look at 2019-20 instead with the Premier League’s own stats showing ticket prices have risen 18.75% (£32 to £38). 

That’s a big jump over the course of a few seasons meaning that season tickets have gone up by an average of at least £114 according to the Premier League’s own figures. That figure comes from an increase of £6 x 19 games although since some clubs also bundle Cup matches into season tickets the increase could be even higher.

Does the average include away tickets which are “currently capped” (the Premier League’s own wording) at £30? That cap was the result of a hard-fought campaign led by the FSA and we would of course resist any attempt to abolish that cap. It must remain and recognise the huge contribution that away fans make to the atmosphere at games.

Does the Premier League have official attendance figures? We often see empty seats at games where attendances are advertised as sold out, whilst fans are told that stadiums are 99% full.

We always appreciate the work officials in football do in preparing this type of information, and we’ll continue the process of interrogating that data, and liaising with those who work at the Premier League and beyond, to deliver the best results for matchgoers.

Our #StopExploitingLoyalty campaign will play a big role in that when it comes to ticket pricing – and we’d love to hear from supporters and supporters’ groups who’d like to get involved in that work. Give us a shout.

• By fans, for fans – join the FSA…