Attendance fears as Chelsea struggle to sell seats

Champions Chelsea were on the hard sell before the latest leg of football’s “one-horse race” after revealing thousands of seats remained unsold for tomorrow night’s Stamford Bridge clash against West Brom.

The Premier League were adopting a “wait and see” approach to the news, which comes in the wake of disappointing crowds at Sunderland, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Blackburn, plus Newcastle’s first struggle to sell season tickets in years.

League officials consider it too soon to judge whether empty seats in Premiership stadiums will become a common sight, but the chairman of the Football Supporters’ Association issued a stark warning.

Malcolm Clarke directly correlates the slow sales with Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon’s pre-season claim that “the winner of the title will come from a small bunch of one”.

The cheapest seats on sale at Chelsea were £48, with others available at £60.

Clarke said: “I think there are a number of signs now that the bubble in the Premiership is beginning to burst.

“At the weekend, Manchester United had tickets on general sale for the first time in many years.

“And when you look at the prices at Chelsea, their situation is not surprising.

“When Peter Kenyon says it’s a one-horse race, he should realise that what follows is hardly surprising.

“How many racehorse punters want to go and watch a one-horse race. Maybe Mr Kenyon should be asked why fans should pay £48 (€70.70) to watch a one-horse race.”

Chelsea took out a newspaper advert, publicising the fact tickets were available for Albion’s visit. While sales continued today, the box office predicted they would be open tomorrow from 9am with seats likely to be available.

“We had Newcastle advertising season tickets on local radio this summer, which was unheard of a few years ago, and probably next season it might get even worse for them,” Clarke added.

“A lot of people renewed because they thought they couldn’t run the risk of not getting into games. Now they’ve realised there are match tickets on sale.

“Prices at the top level in British football are the dearest in Europe by some margin and have risen way beyond the level of inflation since the Premiership was formed.

“Lord Justice Taylor, in his Hillsborough report, said a reasonable price for seats at a Premiership game would be £6.

“That was 15 years ago and if you put the inflation multiplier on that it comes out as £11-something (about €17).

“Manchester City, who have a reputation for having ‘wonderwall’ fans, didn’t sell out their allocation at Birmingham the other day.

“Most Manchester City fans think there’s no chance of winning anything this season, after selling Shaun Wright-Phillips, so why spend a lot of money?”

Arsenal versus Fulham tomorrow night is a sell-out, but tickets were still available for Bolton’s home match against Newcastle, and Blackburn were fearing another low crowd for the visit of Tottenham.

Tickets at Ewood Park would be available right until kick-off, and Blackburn, as they regularly do, advertised the match locally.

There were “lots of tickets available to home and away fans”, said a box office sales agent, despite adult prices starting at £15 (about €22) and being pinned to a maximum of £32 (abut €47).

Blackburn had no such problems during their boom mid-1990s period, but just 16,953 showed for Saturday’s match with Fulham, meaning the 31,367-capacity stadium was barely half full.

“I hate to say we told you so but we did tell them so,” said Clarke.

Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson urged caution on attendances and suggested a fuller picture would emerge before the end of the year.

“We had similar accusations levelled at us at the beginning of last season and we finished with one of the strongest occupancy levels that we’ve had - 94.2%,” he said.

“We’d need to take a significant number of games into the season before you can draw any meaningful analysis. Once you get towards Christmas you’re in a position to see how things are shaping up.”

Rob Hobson, editor of Chelsea online fanzine CFCnet, recognised it was “very unusual” for the club to be advertising their spare seats.

But he added: “It’s nice for other people to have a chance to get into a game. I’d be very surprised if it’s a theme this season, after winning the championship and in a centenary season.

“It’s early in the season and it’d be wrong to make rushed judgements.

“Of course it’s expensive. It’s expensive everywhere. Tickets are expensive, but we all grin and bear it, don’t we.”

Hobson takes issue with Kenyon’s stance on Chelsea’s championship defence, and insists nothing should be taken for granted.

“How can you assume that at the start of the season as a fan?” he added.

“We’re always nervous about it, otherwise why would you bother?”