Attendance Gap at England Women's Football Matches Raises Questions
In 2025, England women's football team played eight home games, including three at Wembley, selling about 48,000 tickets. However, actual attendance figures were lower, revealing a gap between tickets sold and people present in the stadium. For example, the Wembley match on 29 November against China sold out with 74,611 attendees. Despite this high number, the stadium's capacity of roughly 85,000 when accounting for broadcast and operational allocations left visible empty red seats.
Across all eight home games in 2025, total attendance reached 302,238, averaging 37,780 spectators per match. The final two games played within four days drew a combined crowd exceeding 94,000. Comparatively, in 2024 England hosted seven home games, with an average attendance of 42,770 and a peak of 78,346 during a friendly match against the US at Wembley.
In the context of the 2025 US Women's National Team (USWNT), they hosted 15 home matches on US soil averaging 19,269 in attendance. Their peak crowd was 32,303 against Brazil at SoFi Stadium. Only three matches exceeded attendance of 20,000, with the lowest being 3,242 against the Dominican Republic in the Gold Cup, and the highest 50,644 in the SheBelieves Cup versus Japan.
Several factors contribute to this disparity between tickets sold and attendance. These include early ticket sales months in advance, which may be influenced by major tournaments, unpredictable weather, transport issues, scheduling conflicts with men's football games, and broader economic challenges such as the cost of living. While pricing and affordability play a role— for instance, a £40 family-ticket option was available for England versus China—these elements alone do not fully account for the unused tickets and attendance variation.
The Football Association (FA) is actively addressing this issue through a cross-functional group encompassing commercial, marketing, communications, digital, ticketing, events, finance, broadcast, and operations sectors. They engage with the Football Supporters’ Association to better understand audience behaviors and preferences. However, there is no simple solution to this complex attendance issue.
Notably, the attendance gap is not exclusive to women's football. Even sellout crowds in men's matches, such as England versus Wales with 78,116 attendees, have experienced lower than expected turnouts. This demonstrates broader variability in attendance expectations across football matches regardless of gender.
