January is the longest month, and the cost-of-living crisis is biting hard. In the north-east, Newcastle United are near the top of the Premier League following a Saudi-backed buyout of the club in 2021. The only downside to success is that many Geordies now can’t get a ticket to watch their team play. Some have turned south of the Tyne, to Gateshead FC, a local non-league team. Gateshead play in an old athletics stadium and charge a tenth of the cost of Newcastle. Sustainability and accessibility are opponents in a game where money is the referee.
Things are a bit different over the water in France, where I recently went to watch Paris FC play. For this I paid: nothing. All tickets for the club’s home games are free of charge. If we want to grow civic engagement in our beautiful game, we need to look at new models of funding lower-league football as a social and economic good, and demand the Premier League gives more back to grassroots clubs and fans.
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