this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Football / Soccer / Calcio / Futebol / Fußball
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"Portugal outside of Big 3" is really pretty small business lol. The 2nd tier of the Polish leauge also has more attendance than that, and Poland is among the European countries with fewest people going to football games per capita.
The "Big 3" is more than 60% of attendance of whole Primeira Liga.
Is that lack of interest in football, or just the domestic league? Most of the Polish I've worked with would play in our 6-a-side games. One lad with a Legia Warsaw screensaver who was a bit of a nutter.
Hard to say for me really. Football is definitely popular. People just don't go in as big amounts as in football countries, relatively to the country's whole population. The only country I found with a lower number among the ones I checked was Ireland, but Ireland definitely has other sports they prefer, in Poland football is definitely the most popular sport overall.
What I can say is that in Germany football is considered way more inclusive entertainment, more people think it's just a nice way to spend time with your family, "normal" people go to games. In Poland going to games is more associated with being a hooli, an ultra, and most middle-class people really despise the idea. I can say my family would definitely never go to a football game, and tbh even avoid going out on the time of the game to not meet the fans on the street to avoid unpleasantries. Also basically all my friends (middle class) despise football and football fans and think it's an entertainment for simpletons and would never go to a game. The general popular opinion in this class is that footballers are overpaid lazy do-nothings who are all very bad at their job, and the fans are lowlife who will beat someone up.
I can also say that my hometown club has a stadium of 40 000, which is just too big in general. It was built for Euro 2012, in hopes that the culture will catch up to the facilities. The average last season was 10 thousand people, when they were battling relegation. This season, inexplicably, they keep winning games and lead the league, and the stadium is suddenly full.
Interesting - this is exactly how it was in England before the Premier League. Attendances were half of what they are today in the 80s. No families, just predominantly working class men. It wasn't uncommon for someone to just piss where they were standing in the stadium, so you'd never taken your wife or kids to a game.
I had a look at Polish historical attendances, and if you go back to the 1970s the average league attendance is actually higher than the leagues in France, Netherlands and Scotland at that time. About +40% higher than it is now.
For Ireland, football is still extremely popular over there, probably their 2nd sport after Gaelic football. More so than Rugby despite their success in that. It's just difficult to encourage people to go out in the cold to watch local football when you can sit in a warm pub and watch a Premier League game on TV easily enough.