Man United: Now the best supported club in Europe*
By: Rob | July 27th, 2010
*Based on average attendance last season.
Interesting story in todays Independent, which comes via those guys at France Football, about who the best supported team in Europe is. Now its not a flawless study obviously as it just takes the average number of supporters that went through the turnstiles (not taking into account things like, ticket cost – which of course helped the German sides on the list and ground size – Chelsea might fill Stamford Bridge but they still would struggle on the list etc) but it is an interesting list. I’ve got the full list below, or you can click here (but you have to cycle through a bunch of photos).
1. Manchester United (75,304)
2. Borussia Dortmund (74, 748)
3. Barcelona (71, 045)
4, Real Madrid (70,816)
5. Bayern Munich (69,000)
6. Schalke (61, 442)
7. Arsenal (60, 040)
8. Milan (59, 747)
9. Celtic (57, 366)
10. Hamburg (58, 811)
11. Hertha Berlin (52,165)
12. Marseille (52, 162)
13. Inter (55, 520)
14, Stuttgart (51, 700)
15 Cologne (50, 222)
16 Rangers (49. 534)
17. Ajax (49, 014)
18. Newcastle United (48, 750)
19. Borussia Moenchengladbach (47, 240)
20 Eintracht Franckfurt (47, 000)
21 Atletico Madrid (44, 082)
22 Feyenoord (43, 956)
23 Liverpool (43, 611)
24. Man City (42, 903)
25 Hannover (41, 919)
Pretty impressive to see Newcastle, who were in the Championship in there, eh?
But yeah, the interesting thing here is the implication (which will be ignored by the Premier League, obviously). There’s just five English teams in there, and two are in the bottom three, and one was in the Championship. So, so much for the Biggest League in the World, huh.
Part of the issue is that clubs like Liverpool and Chelsea can’t expand the grounds that they already have, and Liverpool can’t afford to move. People might point to Man City’s new found wealth as to why they are there, but really its because of the fantastic City of Manchester stadium, build the grounds and the crowds will come. Probably.
Another issue is obviously the ticket prices. German teams as usual dominate the list, and while this is partly because having recently held a World Cup means they have absolutely top class stadia, they also offer far lower ticket prices than in England or Italy or Spain.
Lower ticket prices and better stadia. Is it too much to ask?
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Comments
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Yes, yes it is.
I love seeing Borussia Dortmund up there. Apparently some years ago they were top, with around 85,000 average attendance.
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Considering their capacity advantage, Dortmund would undoubtedly have been tops if not for a number of poor weather matches–the Bundesliga played quite a few matches in heavy snow conditions last season, while the EPL canceled matches left and right.
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The numbers for Italian teams, wherever you got them from, are off. There is no way that Milan had almost 60,000 supporters going through turnstiles on average. It’s more like 40,000 for Milan. It’s been well reported that Inter were the best supported team in Italy with almost 60,000 supporters on average per home game.
Soccernet agrees with me, btw. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/team/stats?teamId=103&season=2009&cc=5901&leagueId=12&league=ita.1&seasontype=1
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@MAD Although I don’t really find the confirmation in the Soccernet link, I did find data independently that supports your claim: It put Inter at 56,195 and Milan at 42,809 on average last season. Makes me wonder if they slightly low-balled Dortmund to get their headline too–that’s my next investigation.
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Shocking. Bolton’s not on there.
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@Luke Actually i did find that soccernet put Dortmund at an average of 76656 heres the link. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance?league=ger.1&year=2009&cc=5901
But every where i look im finding different #’s.
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Yeah Manchester United is the biggest club in the world alongside Real Madrid. They are a global brand and I think last year they made a bigger turnover than Madrid. Surprised that Schalke are in the top 10.
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@luke: If you scroll down the page I link to, it lists the average home attendance.
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“Surprised that Schalke are in the top 10. ”
Why?
It’s amazing that Bayern averaged a sell out.
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thats hardly that surprising Man Utd have been one of the highest grossing teams in terms of profit for years that obviously had to translate to ticket sales at some point.
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