A League of Their Own: Euro 2016 Tickets Pricing Out the Working-Man

A ticket price breakdown for Euro 2016 confirms what many have been saying for years: football is no longer a sport for the average man or woman.

An eye-popping chart put together by Ticket Compare has shown just how many hours the fans of each country competing at Euro 2016 will have to work in order to see their teams in action. The figures involved will make the eyes of most regular fans water, particularly those who are struggling to get by on the minimum wage. By looking first at the lowest cost of tickets available for the opening game at Euro 2016, the price hikes show an alarming tendency from the outset. The cheapest ticket for this summer’s first match jumped from €45 at the previous three championships to €75 in France. The numbers sourced from uefa.com are even more shocking when looking at the most expensive seat. This ticket which cost €250 for the previous tournament in Poland and the Ukraine had risen to a staggering €595 for France’s opener at the Stade de France against Romania.

Table 1: Euro Championships Ticket Price Increase

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Fans from the UK and Ireland are actually some of the best off when it comes to the country by country breakdown of how many hours of work it would take a person earning the minimum wage to buy the most expensive seat for the knockout stage of Euro 2016. The UK sits in third position on this table, with Ireland at fifth, meaning that an England fan hoping to see Roy Hodgson’s team in style at the quarter-final stage would need to work just over 21 hours.

Table 2: Euro 2016 Ticket Price vs. Minimum Wage in Europe

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Switzerland is the country whose fans have it best, with their extremely generous minimum hourly wage of just over €37 meaning that for the same quarter final ticket a Swiss fan would need to work a little more than 5 hours. This contrasts wildly for fans from the Ukraine, where the minimum wage can be as low as 30 cents per hours. In order to get into the quarter-final, a man or woman earning such a low figure would need to work 650 hours, or earn the equivalent of 433% of their normal monthly wage. If Roy’s Boys were to surprise the whole country and storm their way to the final in Paris, an Englishman earning the minimum wage would need to work just under 100 hours to buy the most expensive ticket of €895. A figure that some would probably feel worth it for the chance to experience history in the making, but one that would likely end up feeling less enjoyable if the game were to go to penalties!

Table 3: Minimum Wage in Europe

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The rapidly rising cost of watching Euro 2016 will not come as much surprise to sports fans the world over who have long grown accustomed to this worrying trend. As more and more money is spent on television deals and the advertising that this brings in, a route to watch the final in person for most ordinary people is just no longer something that is a reality.