Prem clubs lying about match attendance figures, City by 10k a match

Mr Anderson

Eats, shoots, leaves
Joined
Jul 6, 2009
Messages
24,306
Location
Ireland
This can’t possibly be true. I don’t believe that 1 in 6 or even 1 in 10 seats are empty on average.

Or then again maybe they are.
10% would be the the average for most paid event no-shows. Work, travel issues (breakdowns, flights, trains etc), sickness, Can't be bothered to attend due to form or opposition etc - will always be people who just cant make it for whatever reason.
 

Toad

Full Member
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
3,668
Location
England
Cooking the books! I guess it would be one way to generate 'revenue' if you're pumping in 10k ghost fans and their ticket prices, albeit far-fetched.
These ghost fans also buy 10 drinks each per match, but 3 full kits for them and their full kit wanker buddies and donate an extra £50 each to the City JustGiving page
 

JohnnyKills

Full Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2016
Messages
7,100
But the stadium was built for another purpose, wasn't it? What would you have had Manchester City Council do with it otherwise?
They receive a rent and percentage of ticket revenue from City for use of the ground plus the spin-off benefits of more jobs, contracts awarded to local firms, new educational facilities built in a deprived part of the city and countless other revenue streams which having a second successful team brings to Manchester.
All of that is true, but that doesn't change the fact that City had, to quote Danny Dyer, a right touch with that deal.

At the time Eastlands was built there was no way City could afford to spend £110m on a new stadium. But the Commonwealth Games gave them the chance to rent someone else's, and on extremely generous terms - I read in one report that the rental payment was voided if the attendance dipped below 32,000.

The Sheikhs had the money to build a new ground themselves, but the fact that City had a shiny new stadium would certainly have made them more atrractive when Mansour was deciding which middle-of-the-road club to buy up back in 2008.
 

DonFerguson

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
157
In all fairness, all clubs do this. In 2013 The Guardian published a similar story about the disparity between club and police figures of attendances at OT.

"Greater Manchester police's figures claim the average crowd for league matches, excluding City, is 10,000 below what the club say. The police records state it is 65,601 rather than the official figure of 75,527. In all competitions it is 61,739 rather than the club's 73,653."
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/apr/12/manchester-united-attendances-police-figures
I was about to post the same thing.

United do it, City do it, everyone does it....

As far as I'm concerned the information beggars belief in both the articles for United and City. Sure there must be lots of ST holders who don't attend at both clubs but not at the levels they are publicising.
I was going to say that not only do all top level football clubs do that (another obvious example is Barcelona. Just looking at the stands after reading the attendance figures would have you rolling on the floor laughing ), but so to do most top teams in other sports.

Most NBA teams inflate the attendance. I've attended playoff games where a sellout crowd was announced, and I could clearly see pockets of empty space seats scattered all over.

Boxing regularly does it, as does WWE (chreographed wrestling). They have been known to inflate attendance by up to 15,000 fans in order to set attendance records.
 

Sarni

nice guy, unassuming, objective United fan.
Joined
Jan 21, 2004
Messages
58,219
Location
Krakow
10% would be the the average for most paid event no-shows. Work, travel issues (breakdowns, flights, trains etc), sickness, Can't be bothered to attend due to form or opposition etc - will always be people who just cant make it for whatever reason.
Indeed, at first I thought it would be noticeable at first glance but it really wouldn’t. 1 in 10 empty seat is probably what I would expect looking around me during games.

Even looking at my history I would say that I personally skipped 5% or so of events I had bought the tickets to, and for season ticket holders this number goes up significantly because they did not pick all the games.
 

JohnnyKills

Full Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2016
Messages
7,100
Tax returns are based on ticket sales not bums on seats, in the 80s I rememer squeezing into a packed kippax only to read the next day there were 30k at the game, reason being our somewhat dubious chairman was avoiding tax, now we report the ticket sales and get accused of over reporting. Guess you can never win.

Fortunately I no longer feel the need to live vicariously through the size of my teams crowd.

How many threads do you need to emphasise that United have a bigger world fan base. You know it I know it, but no one cares.
'somewhat dubious chairman'.

Understatement of the year right there :lol:
 

BRRRRAP

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Feb 13, 2018
Messages
57
Forgive me. I accept that you were not recently banned , just given a mod warning but it patently did not work as you steam in calling a poster who's been around awhile a liar and a fabricator for stating an opinion about a matter that cannot be proven one way or another.
The UAE project? I could start on many skeletons in United's cupboard but that's been done to death and this is not the place for that discussion.
You take the cowards way out of your folly by calling it mild fun poking? I get plenty of that on here and give it back in good heart but you cross the line when you call me a liar.
To keep the peace I'm going to block you and thread ban myself from this one before I tell you what I really think of your arrogant, obnoxious self.
You said I was recently banned. That is a blatant lie.
You lie about attendance.
We all know that the UAE project at City cook the books. That's just the way it is. Get over yourself.
Everybody knows it so no point in denying itvonna United fan forum.
 

Denis_unwise

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 5, 2018
Messages
150
Problem is, I know a load of City fans and worked with quite a few a I used to work in Stockport.

They all go to every home game and they all tell me that there are only 1000 or so empty seats every home game.

Even when I show them pictures of half empty stands they claim otherwise .

It is a peculiar blind spot. City want to be the best supported club in the city but they are not, why it matters is beyond me.
The blues i work with are the same TBH. In some ways it's a coping mechanism. It's better to believe a lie than admit the truth.

I don't understand why they don't employ seat fillers. They do this at awards ceremonies like the Oscars. It looks alot better on tv. The seat fillers could also be used to convey subliminal advertising. We are told that City have some of the best business brains in the world. They must surely see how it hurts the brand having thousands upon thousands of empty seats in the stadium showing to viewers around the globe.
 

Fish in kettles

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Nov 25, 2017
Messages
182
Supports
Man City
'somewhat dubious chairman'.

Understatement of the year right there :lol:

He wasn't perfect but he didn't sell dodgy meat to schools or stalk ladies in toilets, guess no one is perfect. He was a complete a*** though.
 

OldSchoolManc

Full Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2018
Messages
2,809
City cook the books on most things. This comes as no surprise.
Cooking the books! I guess it would be one way to generate 'revenue' if you're pumping in 10k ghost fans and their ticket prices, albeit far-fetched.

In fairness, you'd need to compare this to every other PL club & validate the police figures. Given the source is the Sun it's probably nonsense.
These ghost fans also buy 10 drinks each per match, but 3 full kits for them and their full kit wanker buddies and donate an extra £50 each to the City JustGiving page
On this particular side note, how much of this is falsely inflating their income levels? The whole FFP side of City is already a complete joke with their owners sponsoring themselves and making up revenue streams.
I would imagine that if they were completely truthful about profit/loss, they would be running at multi million losses every season.
I still can’t get my head around why it’s allowed.
 

Blue doomer

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jan 2, 2017
Messages
147
Supports
Manchester City
10k is a hell of a lot of people having a ticket and not going, whichever way you look at it. How many season tickets have City sold?
I can assure you mate some of those figures are utter bollocks. The Saints match for a starters there were maybe a 3-4 thousand seats empty tops. But nearly 16 thousands?

And most other games I would only say it's a couple of thousand seasoncard holders not turning up per game at the most. How the feck they have up to 10'000 missing at most games is nonsense.
 

Manchester Dan

Full Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2013
Messages
2,580
Supports
Man City
On this particular side note, how much of this is falsely inflating their income levels? The whole FFP side of City is already a complete joke with their owners sponsoring themselves and making up revenue streams.
I would imagine that if they were completely truthful about profit/loss, they would be running at multi million losses every season.
I still can’t get my head around why it’s allowed.
That would be highly illegal, and definitely won’t be happening. People have made a case that our sponsorships are inflated because of where they come from, but to just lie about revenue is an entirely different ball game. How do you see that going?

“Oh, let’s say we sold 5,000 more tickets, pretend we got an extra £150,000 revenue and put that through the P&L?”
 

FootballHQ

Full Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2017
Messages
18,467
Supports
Aston Villa
Arsenal is surely the worst. Always give the attendance was 59-60k when the crowd is struggling to even reach 50k.
 

Bearded One

Full Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2017
Messages
1,245
Wouldn't surprise me if true. What do City gain by inflating their attendance numbers?
 

JohnnyKills

Full Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2016
Messages
7,100
He wasn't perfect but he didn't sell dodgy meat to schools or stalk ladies in toilets, guess no one is perfect. He was a complete a*** though.
Haha true, Edwards was an absolute wrong 'un. Imagine the number of cameras that are hidden in the women's toilets At OT.
 

Toad

Full Member
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
3,668
Location
England
On this particular side note, how much of this is falsely inflating their income levels? The whole FFP side of City is already a complete joke with their owners sponsoring themselves and making up revenue streams.
I would imagine that if they were completely truthful about profit/loss, they would be running at multi million losses every season.
I still can’t get my head around why it’s allowed.
Neither can I to be honest but it’s seemed it’s just accepted at the moment. It seems to me as if they dont have the nerve to send City crashing down because that’s exactly what would happen if they enforced the rules properly.
 

Token Sheet

Full Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
1,641
Location
"No 6 bus to Old Trafford 6p, Admission to re
This has been discussed many times....
I agree some of the lesser games are way below the official attendance figure, but some of those big game figures are way off.

One explanation is that execs aren't taken into account, as they walk into the ground and don't go through turnstiles, thus police figures don't include them.

You'd be surprised at how many seats are execs at Old Trafford.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/old-trafford-capacity-statistics.313462/
 

elmo

Can never have too many Eevees
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
13,467
Location
AKA: Slapanut Goat Smuggla
That would be highly illegal, and definitely won’t be happening. People have made a case that our sponsorships are inflated because of where they come from, but to just lie about revenue is an entirely different ball game. How do you see that going?

“Oh, let’s say we sold 5,000 more tickets, pretend we got an extra £150,000 revenue and put that through the P&L?”
They can easily inflate their tickets sold by selling season tickets/corporate boxes and literally just going through a third party to buy up their tickets and dump it for cheap for students looking for some cheap entertainment.
 

Green_Red

New Member
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
10,296
As mentioned, It's tickets sold. All clubs base attendance off that fact. Widely know for years. So article calling it "lying" is OTT.
Attendence is based on turnstiles surely. For health and saftey reasons any club would have to know the exact amount of people in rhe stadium at all times, no? I doubt the club would even get insurance at the ground without a system to manage the numbers.
 

OldSchoolManc

Full Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2018
Messages
2,809
If you get Arabian sponsorship for your stadium, is it part of the agreement that it looks like a desert on match days?

It was like that at Arsenal yesterday too.
 

AlwaysRed66

Full Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
1,897
Arsenal seemed half empty but supposedly had over 50,000+ there. What a load of rubbish.
 

joeunited

Full Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2004
Messages
261
Location
Bangkok
I don't know about others' lying but out 75k sounded very quiet on TV the other night.
 

Vato

Watches other men wank.Supports Real.Coincidence?
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
33,205
Location
None of your fecking business
Supports
Real Madrid
I bet you guys even photoshopped the few supporters wearing red in that friendly we played in the states a couple of years ago.
 

DonFerguson

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
157
I bet you guys even photoshopped the few supporters wearing red in that friendly we played in the states a couple of years ago.
That was Marca, wasn't it? They phoyoshopped some of the United fans so that it appeared that there was a higher amount of Real Madrid fans relative to United fans, than there actual were.

There was another controversy in a league match a few years back, where Marca photoshopped a defender out of a picture in an attempt to insinuate that a Barcelona player was offside when he had scored a goal in their previous league match. Mind you, I don't think the competing Catalan papers are any better.
 

Vato

Watches other men wank.Supports Real.Coincidence?
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
33,205
Location
None of your fecking business
Supports
Real Madrid
That was Marca, wasn't it? They phoyoshopped some of the United fans so that it appeared that there was a higher amount of Real Madrid fans relative to United fans, than there actual were.

There was another controversy in a league match a few years back, where Marca photoshopped a defender out of a picture in an attempt to insinuate that a Barcelona player was offside when he had scored a goal in their previous league match. Mind you, I don't think the competing Catalan papers are any better.
I bet you guys photoshopped that article to make it look like we photoshopped those pictures.