Season tickets and the Premier League lesson: when the stands lose familiar faces

I remember an afternoon at the end of the 2026 season, sitting in the dressing room of Hanoi FC after a loss to Binh Duong. Head coach Chu Dinh Nghiem did not talk much about tactics, quietly pointing at the scoreboard. But what haunted me most was not the match, but the words of the old security guard at Hang Day Stadium: "Son, the stands are still full, but I no longer see the familiar faces like before." Back then, I did not fully understand. It was not until I read the debate about season tickets in the Premier League that I realised he had touched on something timeless. In England, season tickets used to be a 'family heirloom' of football supporters. The oldest surviving ticket in the world, kept at Burnley, dates back to the 1884-85 season and carries the warning: "Not transferable, breakers are at once expelled." Almost 150 years later, that spirit survives in modern contract terms, but clubs enforce it very differently. Last season, Arsenal suspended around 74,000 accounts suspected of breaking ticket-resale rules; Manchester United voided 685 tickets; Bournemouth relocated 600 season-ticket holders for hospitality areas. And 14 of 20 Premier League clubs increased season-ticket prices. Sports economist Dominik Schreyer argues clubs are effectively pushing season-ticket holders down the pecking order, because they want to replace them with one-off visitors willing to pay more for a single experience. This story may sound distant from Vietnamese football. But based on my years of watching matches at Hang Day, Thong Nhat and Pleiku for more than three decades, I see the seeds of the same disease. Our clubs still rely on a very small group of loyal supporters, whose average age keeps rising, while young people are drawn elsewhere by other entertainment options. Tickets are cheap, but stands remain sparse in many matches. If aggressive commercialisation arrives, will we keep the familiar faces? Or will we repeat the path England is taking, pushing away the loyal to make room for higher-paying customers? Looking at the Premier League numbers, I understand why club owners are restless. Season tickets make up 75% of all tickets for an average league match – a share so large it is treated as fixed. But for a manager, that is 75% of revenue locked into long-time holders: they pay discounted prices, sometimes do not show up, spend little at concession stands, and, worse, grow older every year. Schreyer points out that "every year the average age grows by one because no one new is getting tickets." That is why clubs are thinking of replacing them with one-off tourists who will pay more, buy shirts, take pictures and post on social media. But here I see a fatal confusion. It is that very group of loyal supporters, with their songs, rituals and silences in the stands, who create the atmosphere clubs are now selling to tourists. A ground without spectators is not truly empty – there are still hearts beating in unison. That atmosphere is the '12th man' every team needs, and the substance of the league's brand. English clubs are driving out the people who create value, so they can sell that value to someone else – what economists call a free-rider problem. And they forget that if the atmosphere disappears, the global product they sell loses its appeal. A stadium full of tourists filming with phones can never produce the same roar as a stand of people who have loved the club since childhood. I have witnessed this in Vietnam. There were years when I did not merely write about a team, but learned to listen to its breathing. I remember the old supporters at Pleiku, who followed LPBank HAGL since the First Division days, arriving early just to watch the players warm up. For them, a season ticket is not a transaction; it is a promise. If one day a Vietnamese club decides to follow Bournemouth's model – moving 600 loyal supporters out of their familiar seats for VIP hospitality – do they really think those VIP guests will sing like the old ultras? The biggest lesson from the Premier League season-ticket story is not the 74,000 suspended accounts or the 685 voided tickets. It is the question few clubs dare to answer: what is the true value of a stand full of familiar faces? The answer may not appear in the annual revenue report, but it lives in every tense match, every late goal celebrated by people who have belonged to the club all their lives. The dressing room does not lie – every whisper becomes an echo. The echo from English stands today is reminding us: do not wait until the stadium falls silent because no one belongs there anymore to understand the value of loyalty.