23/24 season figures revealed – Which European nation had the most fans attend games?

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New UEFA report 

Football is the most popular sport in the world, which is why billions of fans not only enjoy playing the sport but also attend games whenever they can. And few continents are as football daft as Europe. Not only can European nations lay claim to the richest leagues and most prestigious tournaments, but they also have some of the best attended clubs across the continent. But while the best attended clubs in Europe is a fascinating topic, a new report from UEFA has now confirmed which European nations can lay claim to the most football fans that attended games last season. 

Europe’s most football crazy nations 

According to UEFA’s latest figures, no nation in Europe could lay claim to more match-attending football fans than England. In total, the British nation had an incredible 44.7 million football fans make their way through the turnstiles, with the Premier League claiming an impressive 14.7m of the fans – more than any other top-flight in European football. However, intriguingly enough, the majority of English football fans attended games in the nation’s lower tiers, which made up 24.4m of the total. The remaining 5.6m fans attended domestic cup and UEFA competitions games. According to UEFA’s report, the total figure for football fans that attended games in England is not only impressive in its own right, but is also a 3% increase on the previous season’s total. 

To no great surprise, Europe’s other big football nations were in close pursuit behind England last season. In second place was Germany, which had 30.6m fans attend football games and 12.1m of them attend games in the Bundesliga. Some way behind Germany is Spain, which had 22.2m fans attend games in LaLiga and the nations lower tiers and cup competitions. This narrowly beat Italy, which laid claim to 21.5m fans at games last season. There is then a notable drop off to France in fifth place, which had 14.9m fans attend games, followed by the Netherlands (9.4m), Türkiye (6.3m), Poland (5.8m), Scotland (5.6m) and Russia (5.5m) to make up the top 10. Among the top nations in Europe, the Premier League was the highest attended top-flight, followed by the Bundesliga, Serie A, LaLiga and then Ligue 1. 

Scotland continues to claim top spot per capita 

While the Scottish Premiership and the wider SPFL couldn’t lay claim to the highest total number of fans last season, Scottish football was once again the highest attended among Europe’s top nations on a per capita basis. According to the SPFL, Scotland recorded significantly higher top-flight attendances per capita than any other European league. Using the data from UEFA’s report, the Scottish leagues claim that the Scottish Premiership’s support represented 18.36 of every 1,000 people in Scotland. Which was apparently twice that of the second best nation by the same metric – which was Portugal’s Primera Liga, which had 10.23 fans for every 1,000 people in Portugal. The Dutch Eredivisie (9.16) was third, followed by the Premier League, which had 6.77 fans per every 1,000 people in England attend games last season.