Football attendances in Europe increased by 2.6 million last season, with 14 leagues achieving their best attendance figures in more than a decade.
Figures released by Uefa, European football’s governing body, highlighted a 1.5 per cent year-on-year increase in spectator numbers at domestic and European games, with more than 170 million people attending games in 2015/16.
Around a third of that total was generated by the combined attendances of football league games in England and Germany. The English Premier League was the most popular league in Europe, with an aggregate of 13.9 million. However, the German Bundesliga – which has two fewer teams – had the highest average attendance of 43,300.
Spain’s Primera Liga, the English second-tier Championship and Italy’s Serie A completed the top five. England’s third-tier League One was the ninth most popular football league in Europe with a total attendance of 3.9 million and average gate of 7,040.
FC Barcelona were the biggest draw in Europe with a total of 1.51 million spectators attending games at the Camp Nou. Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich completed the top five. However, Dortmund had the highest average gate of 81,178.
Uefa said: “All eight clubs that recorded home match attendances of more than one million play in the top tier in England, Germany or Spain, and four of the top ten European leagues by total attendance were second or third-tier leagues in England, Germany and Spain, emphasising the
strength and depth of supporter interest and stadium capacity in these three traditional powerhouses.”
A total of 34 European nations saw an increase in attendances in 2015/16, with 17 decreasing. The 14 leagues that accrued their highest attendance in 10 yearswere Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.
Sweden, with a 40 per cent rise, saw the largest percentage increase in gates, while the French football league lost experienced the largest total decrease of more than 500,000.
Based on 4,900 season-to-season results, Uefa said each step up or down the league table results in an average three-per-cent increase or decrease in match attendance.
Uefa added: “There is a clear link between average attendance trends and on-pitch performance, as measured by changes in final league position. On average, moving one position up the league table added three per cent to average attendance, with each position lost resulting in an equivalent three per cent drop in attendance.
“A significant improvement or deterioration in performance (moving three places or more in the table), as seen more than 2,000 times across European leagues in the last decade, has led on average to crowds increasing by 15 per cent or decreasing by nine per cent.”
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