West Ham United reported massive attendances in the Premier League last season, despite being relegated after an abject year left them finishing eighteenth in the league. These numbers which the club reported, often way up in the sixty thousands, it turns out, were grossly overstated.
Official statistics obtained via a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request from turnstile software managed by Newham Council paint a very different picture as quite literally hundreds of thousands of WestHa fans voted with their feet and stayed away.
As reported by fourfourtwo.com, it turns out that the West Ham figures reported were inaccurate to a staggering degree.
“Data obtained via a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request from turnstile software managed by Newham Council has revealed an average discrepancy of nearly 13,000 unoccupied seats per Premier League fixture at the London Stadium during the 2025/26 season.”
Which works out at something around a quarter of a million missing fans who were claimed to be attending games in 2025/6 – but were not.
“While the club reported selling an average of 62,455 tickets across 19 home league matches – representing a 99.92% capacity fill rate – turnstiles recorded an actual average attendance of just 49,567 spectators, placing true stadium occupancy at 78.66%, meaning a total of 244,870 paid-for seats remained empty on matchdays across the campaign.’
The board would have had the same turnstile figures but of course, with the boycott of games and supporter protests, would have sought to win the PR war and over-inflated the numbers based on ticket sales rather than attendees. At least, that’s my take on it.
The worst reported discrepancy was for West Ham’s relegation derby with Nottingham Forest on January 6th when there were over 29,000 empty seats for that particular fixture.
Talk about voting with their feet. To my mind it is a scandal that the board could get away with reporting inaccurate figures just to save face. Just call me Mr Angry.