Limiting ticket prices for away fans in Spain a positive move but more needs to be done

From 2023/24 season fans wanting to follow their team on the road in La Liga can purchase tickets for €30 - but late kick-off times still an issue

Mallorca fans away to Osasuna during a La Liga match on May 22, 2022 in Pamplona, Spain. Getty Images

Spain is a football watching country, but the culture of travelling away to watch your team doesn’t compare to many other European countries. While German clubs regularly take 10,000 or even more fans to away games and Premier League teams regularly sell all 3,000 allocated tickets for theirs, followings in Spain are small, with some exceptions.

There are several reasons for this. Spain is a big country. It’s 1,000 kilometres and over 10 hours by road from Barcelona on its northeastern coast to to Seville in the southwest. This has hindered a culture of dedicated away trips and Spain’s transport infrastructure didn’t historically aid faster cross-country travel as it does now.

Fans, especially away fans, have long been an afterthought, too, with kick-off times for matches changed later than in neighbouring countries and games routinely played late on a Sunday night. That doesn’t make it easy to get home when you may have work in the morning. There’s long been another problem: cost. Despite average wages being lower than in England or Germany, ticket prices are often far more expensive.

Fans attending European games in Spain were shocked to see tickets on sale for around €100. Spanish clubs just shrugged their shoulders as if to say, ‘that’s how it is here’. The five most expensive match tickets in Manchester United’s history, excluding finals, have all been for games in Spain. Fans paid as much as €119 to watch United at Barcelona’s Camp Nou in 2019. Uefa, European football's governing body, pressured Spanish clubs to lower prices for away fans for European games. They did. Now, after speaking to fans groups, Champions League tickets for away fans must not exceed €70 from this season, €45 in the Europa League and €25 in the Conference League.

There has been further progress. Domestically, the majority of La Liga teams have agreed to restrict the cost of tickets for away fans to €30 from the start of the 2023/24 season. It’s a similar move to one adopted by the Premier League a decade ago where the limit is £30. Prior to that, clubs, especially those in London, were charging away fans twice that. The Premier League came to realise that away fans add to the atmosphere and the spectacle that makes global sales of their games so huge.

The majority of La Liga clubs will also allocate a minimum of 300 tickets to away fans. Given the tiny away followings at present, it’s a start. Camp Nou’s away section, high in the worst seats in the stadium, regularly accommodated less than 30 fans.

Empty seats are seen as supporters protest against match ticketing prior to the La Liga match between Barcelona and Cadiz at Camp Nou on April 18, 2022 in Barcelona, Spain. Getty Images

Empty seats have been an issue for La Liga, with clubs threatened with fines if they have too many on view. Those images don’t compare favourably to the Premier League where games are normally sold out and average crowds hit an all-time high of 40,000 last season. In La Liga, the average attendance was a healthy 29,584, though that figure is skewed. Barcelona enjoyed the highest average home attendances in world football last season at 83,498. That number will drop considerably next season as Barca will play games in the 51,000 seater Olympic Stadium while Camp Nou is rebuilt and expanded to seat 105,000.

Real Madrid’s average crowds would have been higher than 56,644 but for the redevelopment at the Bernabéu which will be completed this year and raise the capacity to 85,000. Most La Liga clubs have developed their homes impressively in the last decade.

Attendances in Spain are healthy, but too many clubs have too many empty seats. Espanyol’s stadium is half full to its 40,000 capacity most weeks, yet if a fan wants to attend a one-off game against a lower positioned team, it cost €60 per ticket last season. Espanyol were relegated. Barcelona’s second biggest club really should be a bigger deal.

Work at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu stadium has started after it got disrupted due the coronavirus pandemic in Madrid, Spain. Getty

Renovation work at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium had to be suspended for 10 days. Getty

Construction work is going on at full swing at the Santiago Bernabeu. Getty

Real Madrid have grand plans for the new Santiago Bernabeu stadium. Getty

Real Madrid hope to use Santiago Bernabeu as a multi-purpose venue that can be utilised almost round the year. getty

View outside the Santiago Bernabeu during the Liga match between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in February. Getty

The new Santiago Bernabeu stadium will have a retractable grass pitch within the stadium which will allow it to be removed within minutes. Getty

The Santiago Bernabeu ahead of the Champions League match between Real Madrid and Galatasaray in November 2019. Getty

The Santiago Bernabeu prior to the La Liga match between Real Madrid and Levante in September. Getty

View outside the Santiago Bernabeu prior to the La Liga match between Real Madrid and Girona. Getty

Real Madrid are looking to speed up the reconstruction work at Santiago Bernabeu. Getty

The Santiago Bernabeu is one of the most iconic venues in the world. Getty

The new Santiago Bernabeu should be ready by 2021. Getty

The Santiago Bernabeu before a match between Real Madrid and Valencia in 1999. Getty

Six clubs: Girona, Getafe, Rayo Vallecano, Mallorca, Celta Vigo all averaged less than 15,000. In Celta’s case that’s half the capacity.

Players who move from Spain to England often comment on the full stadiums where every seat is taken, because that’s not usually the case in La Liga. Spanish clubs have reasonable priced season tickets for fans who want to attend every game, but the ticket pricing policies for away fans and casual fans puts people off from attending. Eighty per cent of seats were filled across La Liga last term, a high figure, but one which still sees one in five seats unoccupied.

Helping away fans is a positive move, one long overdue. More convenient kick-off times for the benefit of those fans who attend games and not just watch on television will also help.