Festive football costs soar as fans fork out up to £468 to attend matches

• Away fans will spend more than £170 on average over the festive period watching their team

• Plymouth Argyle fans impacted the most paying £468 and will spend over 26 hours on the road
• Match-going fans will clock up 32,388 miles seeing their team in action
• Nottingham Forest fans will pay £42 for a ticket away at Leeds United on New Year’s Day – the most expensive away ticket across all the leagues

Plymouth Argyle fans face the highest cost and most arduous journeys to watch their team over the festive period. This is according to annual research carried out by the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF), and supported by Virgin Media, into the cost of Christmas football.

The analysis includes ticket, travel and food costs, plus journey times, incurred by supporters of all 92 clubs across the Premier League and English Football League for festive fixtures played between Boxing Day and January 4 2018.

The findings show that Plymouth Argyle fans will spend £468.43 – 11 times more than the lowest costs paid by Morecambe FC fans (£42.89). The Pilgrims will travel more than 1,000 miles to get behind their team at MK Dons on Boxing Day and Blackpool on December 30.

Premier prices

Overall, the average fan will spend £171.37 to watch their team this Christmas, where supporters of 46 clubs will travel twice to support their teams away. In total, Premier League fans will pay the most (£182.08) to watch top-flight football over the Christmas break.

On top of costs, some fans will have to travel huge distances to attend games across the country. Total distances that will be travelled range from 20 miles (Chelsea away at Arsenal) to 1,096 miles (Plymouth Argyle at MK Dons and Blackpool) taking between 1hr 41mins and 26hrs 47mins respectively.

The findings underpin the FSF’s ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign, backed by Virgin Media, which calls on clubs to cap the cost of an away ticket to £20.

Kevin Miles, Chief Executive, FSF said:

Despite money being tight around this time of year, supporters will be travelling up and down the country over Christmas and New Year to back their teams in remarkable numbers once again.n> n> n> Away fans are a huge part of our match-going tradition and that shouldn’t be taken for granted, so clubs and sponsors can and should do more in making football as affordable as possible.

As the official shirt sponsor of Southampton FC, Virgin Media is on the side of fans this Christmas by subsiding Southampton supporters’ coach travel and match-day tickets for the Saints’ game against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley Stadium. Crystal Palace fans visiting St Mary’s on January 2 will also have their tickets subsidised to £20 as part of Virgin Media’s ongoing cap on away ticket prices at the stadium.

ENDS

Note to editors

This season, Virgin Media is subsidising every visiting supporter’s ticket from every Premier League club travelling to Southampton – meaning adult fans will pay just £20 to see their team play at St Mary’s. Virgin Media became the official shirt sponsor of Southampton from the 2016/17 season.

The costs incurred by away football fans are calculated based on the three rounds of fixtures between December 26 2017 and January 4 2018. 46 teams will play away twice, meaning 46 clubs will only travel once.

These findings have been calculated based on a range of factors:

• Total average cost figure is calculated based on costs incurred for match-day tickets, travel and food and drink.

• League-based averages and away attendance assumptions per league are based on Premier League data which showed 2015-16 average away attendance was 2, 262. English Football League average away attendances based on 2014-15 (latest available): Championship 1,400, League One 668 and League Two 473.

• Travel:

  • Football stadium postcodes were used as a proxy for point-to-point travel estimates. Driving distance and journey time were measured in miles, based on the shortest driving travel time from stadium to stadium using Google Maps.

  • Public transport travel time data was taken from Google Maps, extracted at the same time as driving information. Public transport costs were based on recommended routes as defined by Google Maps, extracted from Trainline.com on 14/12/17.

  • Train ticket prices were taken on 14/12/17 for Anytime Day Return tickets. Same day return travel assumed, therefore no cost of accommodation included.

  • Driving costs were calculated using return drive distance multiplied by a price per mile of £0.1918 to reflect potential winter weather conditions, roads works and additional congestion

  • Typical football match travel data was used to calculate the split between passengers driving to games and those arriving on public transport. An effective average was then calculated for any fan travelling to each game which blended the different driving and public transport costs. This was discounted to account for car sharing.

  • The 32,388 miles figure is based on the total distance travelled by all 92 clubs playing away games over the festive period. The total distance travelled by all away fans attending games over the Christmas period is estimated at 38,241,406 miles. This is calculated by multiplying the distance each away team will travel over this period by the average away fan attendance in that respective league.

• Ticket Prices: Highest price taken for an adult ticket listed on clubs’ websites or, where not listed, price was quoted by clubs’ ticket office on telephone for match-day tickets.

• Food and drink: Costs are based on survey results by league, as reported in “Door to turnstile – improving travel choices for football fans” (page 15) Campaign for better transport 2013.