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Virgin blows whistle on four-figure footy fans

The average football fan who follows a Premiership team spent £1,331 on their support across 2007, a new poll from Virgin Money shows.

Among supporters of lower division sides, this figure dropped to £1,080.

On the whole, this means that shelling out on match tickets, programmes, travel and merchandise took up around five per cent of the average UK salary for each fan last year.

As many as 12 per cent of Premiership match-going fans also admitted to spending over £3,000 on tickets alone.

Virgin Money spokesman John Franklin said: "2008 will be a real struggle for football fans, regardless of the team they support: while it's true that some clubs have made efforts to reduce ticket prices in an effort to attract more people to match days, the majority of regular football fans will be hard hit by the cost of going to games.

"And while 2007 saw some tough financial conditions, the outlook for 2008 is potentially even worse, meaning people’s expenditure on football will eat into their disposable income even further."

Virgin quizzed 2,000 football supporters for its study.

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