Fans who make fun of the ‘Emptihad’ are just hypocrites
RIVAL fans have been having a good old guffaw at little old City, the Premier League champions who ‘can’t fill their ground.’
The bullets have been flying on social media ever since GMP figures ‘revealed’ the Blues’ crowds were, on average, around 7,500 lower than the official attendance for 12 games in the first half of last season.
Before they get too giddy, those gleeful supporters need to take a few things into consideration.
Firstly, it is acute hypocrisy for fans to slate stay-away supporters at another club.
The fans having a pop at City are either armchair followers themselves, and so have no moral high ground on which to stand, or they are matchgoers, who no doubt whinge every time their club puts up ticket prices.
Complaining about the scandalous cost of tickets these days, and then jeering at fans who either can’t or won’t pay the prices, is plain daft.
But the simple fact at the Etihad Stadium is that City sell out for every single league game. The attendance figure they release is not intended to be a smokescreen.
It is simply a bald statement of number of tickets sold – and the empty seats are a reflection of people who have season tickets but have not used them on the day in question.
That in itself needs sorting, and the club is trying to work out a better way of ensuring that fans who do not intend to use their seats sell them on.
According to the club, City have a bizarre scenario where there are fans wanting to go to games who cannot get a ticket, even though there are empty seats. It is a common problem in the Premier League.
Liverpool have been working on a plan to fill 2,000 empty seats at Anfield - they sell 99.6 per cent of tickets but only fill around 94 per cent.
The Liverpool Echo reported Liverpool’s head of ticketing and hospitality saying: “This is an obvious problem and, like everyone else, I get incredibly frustrated when I see seats left empty at Anfield because I know there are so many people who would readily fill them.”
United fans have been among the first to get into City’s ribs about the ‘Emptihad.’ And yet the situation was reversed five years ago, when a similar Freedom of Information Act request revealed the police figures – said to be based on numbers who actually pass through turnstiles – were exaggerated by an average of 10,000. This time, the Trafford council and police figures both tallied EXACTLY with the club’s own figures. What are the chances of that happening?
Match-going United fans - at least the honest ones - will tell you the Reds regularly don’t fill all their seats. And that is despite having a long queue of tourists ready and willing to fill seats. The fact is, the Blues still retain a hard-core of fans which has remained loyal, through thick and thin. Setting aside the complexities of the problem of selling-on seats, United fans’ boast boils down to the idea they have more glory-hunting, day-tripping supporters than City.
In fact, those jeering Reds are celebrating the existence of the Megastore bag-clutching, phonewielding tourists who they otherwise dislike.