Arsenal exaggerated attendance figures

English Arsenal admitted that it regularly falsifies attendance figures for home matches, something visitors to the Emirates Stadium had long suspected.

Regular visitors to the new stadium, including season ticket holders and reporters, have noted that while attendance figures give the impression that it is at, or close to its 60,500 capacity, the truth is that many seats remain empty.

Sunday's game against English Wigan Athletic is a case in point when the official attendance was given at 60,049 but there were a large number of empty seats.

The club confirmed that the figure announced was for tickets sold rather than actual attendance, and on an average, as many as 3 percent of ticket holders, more than 1800 people, did not use their seats.

The number of no-shows reflects the increase in corporate season ticket holders at the stadium. The club will experiment with a buy-back system later this year that will allow fans to purchase seats that season ticket holders do not use.

Arsenal decided to run the system itself rather than use a ticket agency.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.