As football is ever-increasingly moving into a new era, the price of matchday for fans is also seeing a rise.
The cost of season tickets remains a contentious issue, with many supporters feeling that affordability becomes less attainable each year.
If you’re an adult and wish to have a season ticket at Anfield’s Main Stand, you’ll be charged £904, Liverpool’s most expensive season ticket.
Although this figure remains unchanged from last year due to Liverpool’s price freeze, it still represents a dramatic increase compared to what fans were paying twenty years ago.
In the 2005/06 season a Liverpool season ticket in the Main Stand sat at £570, meaning there’s been a 58% increase in ticket prices in a twenty-year period.
It’s not just Liverpool’s ticket prices that are sky-high. The cheapest ticket at Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium sits at an eye-watering £900.
It’s also not unique to Premier League clubs – Tranmere Rovers’ season tickets start at £440, which in 2023 was the highest price of any fourth-tier side in England.
Since 2005, inflation has caused the price of goods in the UK by approximately 90% with and annual inflation rate of 3.28% in the past 20 years according to CPI’s inflation calendar.
While rising inflation is reflected in higher ticket prices, a range of other factors has made attending professional football ever more difficult to afford.
For example, on average about 30% of football fans drink five or more pints of lager on matchday – with the price of a pint sitting at £5 at both Anfield and the Hill Dickinson.
Therefore, for a fan drinking five pints at the football, they’re spending an additional £25 per-game on top of ticket prices.
The sharp rise in football prices has sparked growing calls for the introduction of price caps on match tickets.
Football, that’s forever been a ‘working class’ game, is becoming inaccessible for those at its roots.
MP for Liverpool West Derby, Ian Byrne, said: “We need to tackle the issue of the pricing out of working-class supporters.
“For 2025-26, of those announced, the majority of prices have been frozen at Premier League clubs, but it has only happened following the concerted and co-ordinated efforts by fan groups led by the Football Supporters’ Association.”
In January 2025, Liverpool supporter groups (Spirit of Shankly, Spion Kop 1906, LFC Women’s Supporters Group and Cultured LFC) combined to write an open letter appealing to the club about ticket prices, saying the continuous rise will only “kill the Kop”.
