Wembley ticket prices – what are we doing here?

Sheffield United and Sunderland fans are forking out to watch a Championship play-off final that still doesn't have a kick-off time

The empty seats at Bramall Lane for Sheffield United’s play-off semi-final win over Bristol City were put down to fans saving money for United’s inevitable trip to Wembley. It makes a sad sort of sense. Supporting a football club is now so expensive that sacrificing other financial commitments is no longer enough – you have to sacrifice some of that support as well.

Ticket prices for the Championship play-off final at Wembley have remained the same as last year, but it doesn’t mean they were reasonable before. Gradual increases and, more subtly, the recategorisation of some seats have taken us to the point where you’re paying between £67 and £105 per person for virtually any angle lower than the gods’ (the gods pay £37 or £54, unless they’re 65+). 

Category 1 and 2 tickets have done some very successful manspreading over the past two or three years. Views from the same cluster of seats behind each goal have improved so much in that time that they’ve been upgraded in class, costing £82 instead of £64 for what can only be a better experience. Strangely, those Category 2 seats were Category 5 (£41) for the League One play-offs last year, so what a season they’ve had, jumping three divisions. The seating plan has other, similar quirks, such as the rags-to-riches story of lower sideline berths near the corner flag blossoming into premium tickets, but you get the gist.

Being charitable, I don’t put this down to greed in its impurest sense. I think it’s a case of simply pitching for as much as you can get, and how much you can get away with. 

For 17 years (seventeen years) after the stadium’s completion, the FA had to pay off the cost of rebuilding Wembley. Those debts were assumed to be subsumed in higher ticket prices as well as more events, including every FA Cup semi-final. That stadium debt was finally cleared in 2024. Whether fans should’ve had to foot the bill for the governing body’s past mistakes is up for debate – quite a short one – but regardless, it’s settled now. Plus, the FA recently announced that they had increased their profits even before that debt was cleared. Let the balls ring!

The pricing of elite football events isn’t a solely English problem, as demonstrated by FIFA charging $892 for the cheapest Club World Cup Final ticket, before making a face-saving adjustment in fear of empty stadiums. Also, footballing authorities can control ticket prices but they aren’t at fault for other huge matchday costs that hit fans, such as England’s… let’s say ‘enterprising’ approach to rail fares. But when it all adds up, something has to give, and football fans aren’t going to win that game of chicken.

I’m a bus/coach man myself, but given the near-impossibility of making that journey with any guarantee of arriving a couple of hours before kick-off, it’s fair to assume a lot of Sunderland and Sheffield United fans will be travelling by train, if they aren’t driving. Due to engineering works, Sheffield United supporters will be going via Doncaster, where Rovers fans will no doubt give them a hearty wave goodbye. Many Mackems will already be on the trains that are collecting Blades at Doncaster, which should enliven proceedings.

A single from Sunderland to Wembley is around the £160 to £170 mark, though fans can pay more to hold their nose and change at Newcastle, and at the time of writing, there’s a single ticket going for each of the two trains coming back on the same day. One of those takes the return price to £260.

Still, it’s totally different for Blades fans: there’s a handful of tickets available on the 6.27am train from Sheffield for just £110, but the 7.37 and 8.38 are both fully booked while the 7.56 will, for some reason, set you back £300 (though you do get a tenner back with SplitSave). Miss the one viable train home and it’s a famously cheap London hotel stay for you.

This is assuming the match kicks off at 3pm, by the way, but of course we don’t know that yet. The people who dictate Wembley’s ticket prices can’t change the fares set by train companies, although they could respond to them; they can, however, give fans a bit of help with planning. As of 5pm on Wednesday 14th May, 10 days before the game (we do at least know the day), the Championship play-off final kick-off time is CBA TBA. It’s lucky that hotels and travel bookings only get cheaper the later you book them.

Source: www.sufc.co.uk

The national minimum wage in full-time work is around £23,000 per year, so let’s say that a hypothetical Sunderland fan, AKA Chris, earns £25k p/a. He’s taking one child to Wembley, following a slightly less harrowing version of Sophie’s Choice that has resulted in his other child staying at home with Chris’ partner (let’s call him Tom, because that’s a twist). Chris has beaten the rush and secured two golden rail tickets for £296.19, plus crisps. He has bought two match tickets pretty high up, some 15 to 20 rows from the back of the stadium. 

Now, I sometimes roll my eyes at surveys that take in the cost of a premium match ticket, valeted car parking, the priciest burger on the menu and a giant cuddly toy, but I think it’s fair to let Chris and his son have a programme – they’re £10 but genuinely very good for EFL play-off finals. They also buy a couple of bottles of water, a hot dog apiece and one clothing-adjacent souvenir for the child, yes ONE, no you can’t have another when you just got this one, fine yes you can have an ice cream but NO SPRINKLES.

Chris has spent nearly half a thousand pounds, well beyond his weekly take-home pay, to take one child to watch their team from the upper tiers of Wembley.

Cynics will argue that I’m playing to the crowd, but the crowd is the point. It’s far more cynical to have control over these matters and say, “You’d put a price on this, would you? This euphoria? This unforgettable day?” Maybe you can’t put a price on limbs, but a minor organ might not be out of the question one day.

These ticket prices are chosen not because the people in charge consider fans with contempt, but because they don’t consider fans at all. It’s noticeable in the way Wembley release tickets block-by-block for many finals, like an otherwise-empty restaurant cramming two couples onto tables back-to-back by the window, prioritising optics and their own convenience over the patrons’ experience. Match-going supporters are part of the product, to sell to wider audiences and, yes, to sponsors. It’s the monetisation of fandom, it’s the exploitation of passion, and it’s live.

Maybe this is all trite, or tripe, or try-hard. A middle-class writer cosplaying as a working-class supporter of a northern football club. But fans matter; people matter. Football’s decision-makers must always remember that they’re also making decisions for others, and every price increase makes their decision a little harder – or, worse, a little easier.

“Are you going to Wembley?”

“No, mate. Can’t afford it.”