Featured image credit: Orange Vélodrome
France’s Ligue de Football Professionel (LFP) has today (Friday) announced that Ligue 1 set new attendance records for the 2022-23 season.
In total, 9.05 million spectators visited the stadiums of France’s top division clubs, a new record for domestic football, and a 16% increase when compared to the 2021-22 Ligue 1 season.
Today’s announcement comes on the back of the LFP declaring in January that Ligue 1’s mid-season attendance figure for the 2022-23 campaign had risen to record levels. For the full season, an average of 23,810 spectators attended matches, again another all-time record for Ligue 1.
With eight clubs achieving more than 25,000 spectators per game on average (Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, Paris Saint-Germain, RC Lens, LOSC Lille, FC Nantes, Stade Rennais FC, RC Strasbourg Alsace), the stadium occupancy rate of Ligue 1 peaked at a record average of 81%.
With 65,894 spectators gathered at the Orange Vélodrome on February 26, the Marseille-PSG clash represented the record attendance for the 2022-23 season. Marseille came out on top in terms of average attendance for the season, with the figure of 62,522 representing an occupancy rate of 95% at the Vélodrome.
Lyon pulled in 47,583 fans for 80% occupancy at Groupama Stadium, while PSG achieved 99% occupancy at the Parc des Princes (47,361). This perhaps illustrates why the Ligue 1 champion is driving forward with plans to enhance its position when it comes to its stadium, the subject of much debate in recent months.
Lens also scored a 99% occupancy rate at Stade Bollaert-Delelis (37,719), while Lille placed fifth in the table with an average attendance of 36,392, however only achieving 74% capacity at Decathlon Arena – Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the bottom three places for average attendance were filled by ES Troyes AC (9,650/50% at the Stade de l’Aube); AC Ajaccio (7,315/78% at Stade François Coty); and AS Monaco (7,084/42% at Stade Louis-II).
Ligue 2 also had a strong season attendance-wise. There was a 59% year-on-rise in total attendance to more than 3.24 million, resulting in a record average attendance across the season of 8,680.
Some 123 matches were played in front of more than 10,000 spectators, compared to only 40 in 2021-22. Le Havre AC, the Ligue 2 champion, was the club whose attendance increased the most, with a jump of 111% compared to the previous season.
The figures in France reflect similar success stories reported over the past week for Spain’s LaLiga and Italy’s Serie A.
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