GdS: The attendance anomaly – Milan lead Serie A despite negative results

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·08 de abril de 2025

GdS: The attendance anomaly – Milan lead Serie A despite negative results

They may have suffered more than they celebrated, but AC Milan fans certainly didn’t give up on seeing their team at San Siro.

La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning that despite being ninth in the table and with just seven wins (just 43.75% of the total) in 16 home games, the Milan fans were the most present at the stadium in all of Serie A.

Vídeos OneFootball

To be precise, the average attendance at San Siro for Milan’s home games stands at 71,643, the only team in the league above 70,000. It’s strange to write this if you think that on the other side of the Naviglio Inter is playing for the Scudetto, but are at 69,942.

It’s the first time since post-Covid that the Rossoneri have surpassed their cousins in average attendance at the stadium. It is strange that it happens in a season that hasn’t been exciting to say the least.

The anomaly

While the number of season ticket holders has remained almost the same, also because it was ‘stopped’ at 40,000 season cards by choice of the club, the attendance of foreigners at San Siro has significantly increased.

It is a support that is perhaps different from the traditional one, but still profitable for the club’s accounts. Even with this phenomenon, the so-called ‘stadium tourism’, certain data can be explained. Like the over 72,000 spectators at Milan-Fiorentina on Saturday, a game with not much on the line.

The wall of 70,000 fans has so far been broken 12 times in Serie A only, with the peak of a sold-out game for Milan-Juventus on November 23 (75,502). The match with the least attendance was Milan-Lazio, still close to 66,000 attendees.

Making a comparison with the Nerazzurri, they have exceeded the threshold of 70,000 nine times out of 15 matches, with the highest figure in Inter-Milan in September (75,366) and the worst figure in Inter-Empoli (61,230).

From these numbers – not so far from those of the last two seasons – it was probably decided to set the capacity of the new stadium at 71,500 seats, the one that the two clubs hope will be built next to their current home.

Atmosphere

Of course, San Siro has not always been a factor in favour of the team. Sergio Conceiçao also recently pointed this out (after the defeat against Lazio, for example), later applauding the fans for their strong support on other occasions, such as the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final derby against Inter.

There was no shortage of jeers, chants and protests, but with results so below expectations it was illogical to expect the opposite. On big nights, however, the stadium did not fail to make its affection for the team felt. In the games against Inter, on Champions League nights or more generally in the big matches.

The enthusiasm seemed to have been rediscovered with the winter mercato. Those who live at San Siro will have noticed the atmosphere that could be felt on the evening of the debut of Santiago Gimenez and Joao Felix, in the quarter-final of the Coppa Italia.

The turning point was then the early elimination in the Champions League play-off by Feyenoord. From then on, the atmosphere at the San Siro changed significantly, and not in a positive way for the team.

What abut the others? Behind the Milanese teams are Roma with an almost 62,000 average. While Napoli, who returned to fight for the Scudetto after the terrible 2023-24 season, are just over 50k but the new capacity at the Maradona is only a few thousand more.

The maintenance at the Stadio Artemio Franchi explains Fiorentina’s data (just 20,226 average spectators), while if we think only about the percentage of filling of the stadium, Cagliari are top 16,089 average with a capacity of 16,365.