Old Firm reporting attendances of 20,000 more than Police claim are there...

[Steve-O]

...according to Saturday's Daily Record.

Why would they do this? To save face, or more sinister reasons?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/269370_586942988002256_1718035200_n.jpg

[hibees59]

I think they are obliged to report how many tickets have been sold (including season tickets). Both of them, and many other clubs in Scotland have season tickets holders not attending. My mate reckeons hearts last game had less than 8K fans at the game but the official attendance was around 10K.

[greenginger]

If the policing charges were based on the published attendance figures I think there would be major adjustments to the gates of certain clubs. :greengrin

[Mr White]

It allows them to claim (falsely) that they're amongst the best attended clubs in Britain. Can't think why they'd want people to think that though...

[tamig]

It allows them to claim (falsely) that they're amongst the best attended clubs in Britain. Can't think why they'd want people to think that though...

It must be some kind of"big team" thing.

[greenginger]

Checked the SPL Rule book,

Rule B 16.1 " The home club shall send the board within 6 days of each league game a report containing the attendance statistics for the match "

So the real figures should be with the SPL or are the returns massaged too ?

[Sylar]

I certainly believe one half of them are guilty of doing this :agree:

[hibee_nation]

I certainly believe one half of them are guilty of doing this :agree:

I agree, the scabby huns are defo at it.

[green&left]

Was a hun that found it out. Wrote to Strathclyde police requesting the actual figure on the turnstile counters under the Freedom of Information Act I think it was and got a reply saying 27,142 or whatever it was, wereas Celtic published the attendance at around 46,896 or there abouts.

[Sylar]

I agree, the scabby huns are defo at it.

I think they're continuing to perpetuate a myth that they're selling out every home game, which certainly isn't the case based on the highlights of the Annan game last week. They are maintaining a reasonably high attendance though on a weekly basis.

The Tims on the other hand have a half empty stadium every week based on the games/highlights we see. They had <10,000 against Raith Rovers earlier in the season, which was initially announced but mysteriously was later revised to 16k or so.

[1875Hibees]

I think they are obliged to report how many tickets have been sold (including season tickets). Both of them, and many other clubs in Scotland have season tickets holders not attending. My mate reckeons hearts last game had less than 8K fans at the game but the official attendance was around 10K.
There was 15k there. Still a very poor turnout though.

[nonshinyfinish]

I think they're continuing to perpetuate a myth that they're selling out every home game, which certainly isn't the case based on the highlights of the Annan game last week. They are maintaining a reasonably high attendance though on a weekly basis.

The Tims on the other hand have a half empty stadium every week based on the games/highlights we see. They had <10,000 against Raith Rovers earlier in the season, which was initially announced but mysteriously was later revised to 16k or so.

After seeing the massive gaps in the stands in the highlights of Newco v. Annan, I went to have a look for the reported attendance. The match report on the Beeb (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21709719) doesn't give an attendance, despite having figures for all the other third division games played that day. :confused:

The results bit of the SFL website doesn't seem to list attendances at all, and I'm certainly not visiting Newco's site - I'll never get my computer clean again.

[Sylar]

After seeing the massive gaps in the stands in the highlights of Newco v. Annan, I went to have a look for the reported attendance. The match report on the Beeb (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21709719) doesn't give an attendance, despite having figures for all the other third division games played that day. :confused:

The results bit of the SFL website doesn't seem to list attendances at all, and I'm certainly not visiting Newco's site - I'll never get my computer clean again.

Couldn't find an official published attendance for last week either but according to a few posters on one of the Rangers forums it was around 34k.

Interestingly, this appeared on Twitter this morning, highlighting the disparity between club published and actual attendances for Celtic games this season as revealed by the FOI request to Strathclyde Police:

SPL Games

Date - Opposition - Att. Given - Att. Actual - Difference
4 Aug v Aberdeen - 48,251 ------41,520------6,731
1 Sep v Hibs -------45,867------38,539-------7,328
22 Sep v Dundee --41,073-------31,749------9,324
7 Oct v Hearts ----46,204--------38,143------8,061
27 Oct v Killie -----47,971--------38,508------9,463
11 Nov v St John. 43,804---------32,500-----11,304
24 Nov v Inverness 44,379-------31,155-----13,224
15 Dec v St Mirren 47,790--------31,415------16,375
22 Dec v Ross C ---49,428--------28,931-----20,497
2 Jan v M'well ----48,002---------34,516-----13,486
19 Jan v Hearts --48,374---------39,379-------8,995
22 Jan v D.Utd ---42,596----------27,693-----14,903
30 Jan v Killie ----43,652---------23,942------19,710

13 Games Totals - 597,391 437,990 159,401

[Steve-O]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/celtic--rangers-attendances-up-1767244

CROWDS at Celtic and Rangers games this season have been up to 20,000 lower than the figures released to the public.

It goes some way to explaining the huge gaps in the stands when the clubs have been claiming near full-houses.

The number of supporters the clubs publicise as turning up to home SPL and Division Three matches is far larger than the true figure reported to police, official records show.

Fans used freedom of information laws to force Strathclyde Police to reveal the real number of supporters attending games at Ibrox and Parkhead.

We obtained the figures as they are now on public record.

Celtic publicised a figure of 49,428 on the SPL website for their game against Ross County at Parkhead in December – 20,497 more than the real attendance of 28,931.

And when Rangers played Queen’s Park at Ibrox in October, the attendance figure published on the Scottish Footbal League website was 49,463.

But the real number given to police was just 34,481 – a difference of 14,982.

The difference is understood to be made up mainly of season ticket holders counted as attending when they have not actually gone to the game.

Publishing the total number of tickets sold – including season ticket holders who haven’t made it to the game – rather than the number at the game is common among senior clubs.

Strathclyde Police ask the Old Firm and all the clubs in their force area for attendance figures to plan safe crowd control and to calculate how many police will need to attend games.

The only fans who aren’t counted are the small number in hospitality or others who don’t pass through the turnstiles such as disabled supporters.

In the 13 league games Celtic played between the start of the season and their game against Kilmarnock on January 30, the club reported an official gate of 597,391.

But over the same period the club have only reported a figure of 437,990 to
the police.

It means the publicised figure has been inflated by 159,401 – a 36 per cent increase.

So the average number of people at each game was 33,692 rather than 45,953.

Meanwhile, Rangers played 11 home league games in Division Three between the beginning of the season and January 30.

They publicised a total attendance figure of 515,250, while the figure reported to the police was just 407,909.

That’s a difference of 107,341 – a 26 per cent increase.

On average, the number of people going through the turnstiles was 37,083, rather than the claimed 46,841.

The publicised figures given by St Mirren, Motherwell and Kilmarnock for
matchday attendances at their grounds appeared to match the ones given to police.

A police spokeswoman said: “The figures are provided to the police by the football club and are taken from live data compiled by the electronic turnstiles management system from patrons entering the stadium.

“The figures do not include some corporate hospitality guests and those patrons who enter the stadium outwith the control of turnstile management.

“These figures are vital to ensure that there is effective queue management of spectators entering the stadium, to maintain spectator cross-flow around the stadium and to ensure that there is no critical overloading of any area of the stadium during ingress.

“The figures are also used as a baseline to effectively plan the resourcing of both stewards and police at future matches involving both clubs.”

The SPL confirmed that they take their attendance figures from the Press Association, who in turn receive them from the clubs.

A Celtic spokesman said: “Like many other British clubs, the figures we provide are total paid attendances between season books and matchday tickets.

“In addition the police figures do not include all corporate hospitality figures.”

A Rangers spokesperson said: “Our crowds are calculated on the number of tickets sold for each game, which we understand is common practice for the overwhelming majority of clubs in the country.”

The SPL and SFL both declined to comment.

After matches at Ibrox and Parkhead, the clubs give their official attendance number to Britain’s national news agency, the Press Association.

The SPL and SFL obtain the attendances for all their matches from the Press Association to put on their websites.

But the figures released by the clubs count tens of thousands of season ticket holders who don’t turn up to matches.

The clubs also have to give an attendance figure to Strathclyde Police so the force can plan crowd control and staffing.

The number given to the police is a true reflection of the numbers at the match, as it is taken from the electronic turnstiles.

Only a small number of fans who don’t use turnstiles – such as hospitality guests and disabled supporters – will not be counted in this figure.

[down-the-slope]

I'm pretty sure this is about 'brand' value....If you are trying to negotiate sponsorship deals then the amounts paid are related to value the partner can bring (which really means number of people)....so its pretty fraudulent if say for instance you are paying for stadium advertising based on attendances avge of 45k when in fact its 36% less than this.....

[Cropley10]

I'm pretty sure this is about 'brand' value....If you are trying to negotiate sponsorship deals then the amounts paid are related to value the partner can bring (which really means number of people)....so its pretty fraudulent if say for instance you are paying for stadium advertising based on attendances avge of 45k when in fact its 36% less than this.....

"Making lots of new friends in the Third Division"

"Playing to full houses every week at Ibrox"

Two of Green's myths about The Rangers, all done to pretend no-one has walked away, and that they can start claiming all sorts of new 'world-records' for his new club.

[jdships]

I'm pretty sure this is about 'brand' value....If you are trying to negotiate sponsorship deals then the amounts paid are related to value the partner can bring (which really means number of people)....so its pretty fraudulent if say for instance you are paying for stadium advertising based on attendances avge of 45k when in fact its 36% less than this.....


Agree
Back in the 1970's I was friends with a lad ( Now passed away) who was the Commercial Fund Raiser ( including sponsorship/advertising ) for a First Division ( now called SPL) team and in his advertising material he always quoted

Season ticket holders plus walk up payers

as the attendance
Many a game there were only 50/75% ST holders attending , especially in Jan/Feb !!!
He never used the words ' Official Attendance' and the figure was never questioned , as far as I know, by the firms advertising .

[Keith_M]

Isn't this just simply a case of Celtc and Rankers trying to outdo each other?



Green: Celtc are dying without us.. we arra (loads of) peepul


Lawell: We at Celtc are unaffected by the absence of Rangers.

[PatHead]

Realised this went on but didn't expect the difference to be so great. Our Pink neighbours have done it for years. Wonder which figures they report to HMRC?

[Winston Ingram]

Graham Spiers mentioned this in a tweet a couple of weeks back and got pelters.

Celtic published a crowd of just under 40k for the Dundee game. You were lucky if there was half that there:agree:

[Ozyhibby]

It's obvious it goes on at Tynecastle as they publish much higher attendance figure than us but have a lower turnover.

[mrdependable]

watching Gillette soccer saturday Celtic Park looks about half full...

[HH81]

watching Gillette soccer saturday Celtic Park looks about half full...

BBC saying 46,395 today.... Lies?

[Sylar]

BBC saying 46,395 today.... Lies?

:faf:

Has Septic Park tripled it's capacity since I was last there?

[Winston Ingram]

It's obvious it goes on at Tynecastle as they publish much higher attendance figure than us but have a lower turnover.

They include ST's even if they don't turn up:agree:

St Johnstone a couple of weeks ago was 10080. A couple of St J fans there said it was the lowest crowd they'd ever seen there and felt it was a few thousand short of that

[wandering_hibee]

If we think that we would like Hearts to be in the third division then replace Celtic and Rangers with Hibs and Hearts in Tom English's take on this

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/top-football-stories/tom-english-old-firm-guilty-of-massaging-numbers-1-2841634

[Jack Hackett]

Realised this went on but didn't expect the difference to be so great. Our Pink neighbours have done it for years. Wonder which figures they report to HMRC?

I would imagine that only walk-ups are reported for tax purposes as seasons will already have tax paid on them (or not in hertz case), so the fantasy figures given as actual attendance are irrelevant to HMRC

[adhibs]

They include ST's even if they don't turn up:agree:

St Johnstone a couple of weeks ago was 10080. A couple of St J fans there said it was the lowest crowd they'd ever seen there and felt it was a few thousand short of that

Someone wrote on her after the game that the police figure was 6, 500

[Bishop Hibee]

They really are a disgrace to Scottish football.