Attendances
Posted on 11 March, 2008 by Egan
It’s been a while since I talked about crowd figures, and I don’t think we’ve done last year’s figures yet. Here they are:
2007 Attendances
| Team | Biggest attendance | Smallest attendance | Average attendance | |
| TPS | 8011 | 3612 | 5293 | |
| HJK | 8733 | 3118 | 4848 | |
| TamU | 8828 | 1925 | 4117 | |
| FC Honka | 6657 | 1810 | 3934 | |
| FC KooTeePee | 3915 | 1915 | 2824 | |
| FC Inter | 4294 | 2141 | 2807 | |
| AC Oulu | 4036 | 1455 | 2725 | |
| FC Viikingit | 4255 | 1117 | 2526 | |
| VPS | 4491 | 1488 | 2350 | |
| FF Jaro | 5611 | 911 | 2338 | |
| FC Lahti | 5685 | 835 | 2292 | |
| FC Haka | 3552 | 1293 | 2024 | |
| IFK Mariehamn | 2519 | 1500 | 1809 | |
| MyPa | 2914 | 1068 | 1769 |
No big surprises there. The clubs with the modern football stadia get the biggest crowds, and the league champions do alright. Of the top 6, only one plays at a ground with a running track, and they are the league champions so should be expected to get decent crowds.
Filed under: Attendances
I don’t know if you have heard about this but they are planning to build a whole new football stadium to Vaasa which would undoubtedly increase attendances in that region. As the main stand in Hietalahti is protected by some museum foundation they cannot really reconstruct the old ground.
Also FC Honka is making serious plans to improve their stadium so that they could play their UEFA matches there. The chairman Harjunpää has visualised a ground with a capacity of 15 000 and Honka playing Champions League there but that’s madman talking. I thinki they are upgrading the stadium upto 8000 in the following few years and obviously building proper stands also.
Talking about the attendances, every number under 1000 really is a disgrace for the Finnish game. The most remarkable thing is the FC Lahti attendances. A city of Jari Litmanen which used to be a proper football city when Reipas and Kuusysi both played in the top flight has really surprised me with such low crowds. But as one can see from individual matches the numbers are still there. The people in Lahti may abandon FC if Kuusysi (City Stars, 2nd division) and Reipas (SalReipas, 3rd division) get promoted to the 1st division. That should be interesting because many people didn’t like the idea of FC Lahti in the first place and wanted to see Kuusysi and Reipas instead.
Fingers crossed that the overall average attendance in Veikkausliiga will be more than 3000 for the first time next year. With HJK being a stronger side this season this could really happen as I excpect to see even bigger crowds in Finnair Stadium next season (they really should have an average of 6000 at least considering the Helsinki area population, but this is Finland).