Empty seats at Aston Villa as Champions League pricing policy massively backfires
There was a huge backlash from Aston Villa fans when their club announced Champions League prices for the 2024/25 season. Prices set from £70 to £82 for season ticket holders for each home game.
Whilst for Aston Villa fans (members and others) without season tickets, they had to pay £85 to £97 for each Champions League ticket. Wednesday night saw Villa Park host its first home Champions League match in 18 months and I was amazed to see empty seats.
This is despite Aston Villa working on a much reduced capacity due to development work on the stadium. A crowd of only 34,705 including a couple of thousand Fenerbache fans as Aston Villa fans voted with their wallets.
I had a look into the details and on the day of the match, Aston Villa were still advertising tickets on sale for the Fenerbache match, clearly tickets that didn't sell out. Aston Villa fans had been far from happy with the fact that the extortionate Champions League prices of two seasons ago, had been further increased for this season.
Season ticket holders at Villa Park paying between £73.50 and £83 for Champions League tickets this season, Aston Villa fans who don't have season tickets having to pay between £89.50 and £99. Villa fans seeing this pricing as especially extortionate as their first two home Champions League matches are less attractive ones against Fenerbahce and Viking.
Had a quick look on the official Aston Villa ticketing site and there are still loads of tickets unsold at the minute for the Viking match which is next Wednesday. The price of football for fans in England is now a huge talking point as prices reaching crazy levels, based on the fact that the big clubs have far more demand than supply.
As Aston Villa fans have shown though, things can go too far and even Champions League matches end up with empty seats. Newcastle United fans saw prices rise throughout their 2025/26 Champions League campaign and the final St James' Park match against Barcelona saw season ticket holders charged a minimum of £69 and United members a minimum of £74 for a ticket.
When Aston Villa fans called out their club on the extortionate Champions League ticket prices two seasons ago, the Aston Villa President of business operations, Chris Heck, gave this revealing answer/defence"We recognise and understand the depth of passion felt amongst fans and their recent frustration around ticket pricing. Achieving our sporting ambitions while complying with financial stability regulations requires difficult decisions.
Financial fair play (FFP) rules prohibit owners from covering shortfalls to finance this ambition, so we need to generate as much revenue as possible through sponsorships, merchandise and ticket sales to ensure that we can keep the club where it rightfully belongs - competing and winning at the top of English and European football." Well, if you end up with empty unsold seats for home Champions League matches, it is a huge negative for both club and fans.