Football for thousands of euros. The most expensive is played in Paris

Season tickets for Paris St. Germain matches cost up to 3,000 euros. “They benefit from being the only club in a major city,” says sports analyst Jozef Tokos.

Not even the famous FC Barcelona with star Lionel Messi, Manchester United, or Real Madrid. The most expensive tickets to football matches belong to a club that doesn’t even compete in one of the four top-tier leagues in Europe. That club is the French Paris St. Germain, where season ticket prices have reached 3,000 euros, and the most premium single-match tickets cost 270 euros. This is based on a study by the British BBC, which collected data from over two hundred British and European football teams.

So why is the most expensive football for fans not played in England, Spain, or Germany, but rather in the French capital? “It comes down to the market principles of supply and demand. Paris is unique in that, as a major city, it has only one top-level football club,” said Jozef Tokos, a sports analyst and football agent, in an interview with the Economic Daily.

The sheikh, the stars, and the fans
Just a few years ago, Paris St. Germain was considered an average and not particularly interesting French club. Everything changed in 2011 with the arrival of a new owner—Qatar Sports Investments, backed by Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani. With his petrodollars came stars like David Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimović, transforming the once-unattractive team into one of the most sought-after clubs in Europe, year after year. The numbers speak for themselves. While the average attendance in the 2010/2011 season was 29,000, a year later it was already 46,000. “Demand among fans far exceeds the number of tickets available. Paris has a population comparable to London, yet London has four top-tier teams—Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, and West Ham,” Tokos explains.

And despite having the highest ticket prices in Europe, the club still manages to keep stadium occupancy over 95 percent. Even though the stadium, with a capacity of 48,000, is one of the smallest compared to other big clubs, it ranks among the top ten in terms of annual ticket revenue. According to auditing firm Deloitte, PSG earned 78 million euros in ticket revenue last season. “The balance between supply and demand is on a different level in Paris than in Madrid or London,” Tokos says.

In England, prices were frozen
Interestingly, in the richest football league in the world—the English Premier League—ticket prices have stagnated or even dropped in some cases. “This was partly due to last year’s protests against proposed price hikes. But it must be said that English clubs can afford this thanks to record-breaking income from TV broadcasting rights,” the sports analyst noted. Simply put, clubs chose not to raise revenues directly from fans’ wallets in order to maintain peace among their supporters. These relatively reasonable prices have likely contributed to the growing popularity of Premier League matches among Slovak fans. “Interest is clearly higher compared to last season. This is also because the traditional Big Four—Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal—are again in contention for the title,” said Marek Vlha from FutbalTour, a company that organizes trips and sells tickets to sporting events across Europe.

According to him, the highest annual demand is for the most famous English derby between Manchester United and Liverpool. “London trips are also popular, where you can catch two or even three matches. That might include second-division games in combination with Premier League ones,” Vlha says.

Trnava leads in Slovakia
Looking at the Slovak football league, the most expensive football here is played in Trnava. Tickets for Spartak’s home matches at the new City Arena are sold for seven to nine euros. DAC Dunajská Streda is starting to compete in price. The team from southern Slovakia opened its new stadium this weekend after the first phase of construction, and tickets were sold for six and eight euros. “Here, prices are logically set so that people are encouraged to come to the stadium. It has no significant impact on the annual revenue of Slovak clubs,” explains Tokos. Many times, clubs are just happy when ticket income covers the cost of organizing the match itself.