Manchester City fans were allocated 4,893 tickets for their semi-final match at St James’ Park.
I had no idea that they had failed to buy up the full allocation.
I just took it for granted that the Manchester City fans had snapped them up.
Turns out that the sales were so poor, that Man City returned at least three blocks of tickets to NUFC, which were then immediately bought up by Newcastle United fans.
Apparently, there will be at the very most up to 3,200 Manchester City fans inside St James’ Park tonight.
A very nice bonus for the Newcastle United players and especially the fans, extra backing for the team and more NUFC supporters able to get into SJP.
As it happens, just over seven months ago I did an article about Manchester City fans and not buying tickets for cup semi-finals.
Man City played Forest at Wembley in April in an FA Cup semi-final and one of the big talking points was the astonishing number of empty seats, left empty due to Manchester City fans not buying them up.
Manchester City Empty Seats Wembley
In that article seven months ago, I had a look back through the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley in recent years, the results and attendances (the FA Cup semi-finals in 2020 and 2021 I didn’t include, as Covid restrictions were in place):
2025 FA Cup semi-finals
82,301 Crystal Palace 3 Aston Villa 0
72,976 Manchester City 2 Nottingham Forest 0
2024 FA Cup semi-finals
83,672 Coventry 3 Manchester United 3 AET (Man U won on penalties)
80,902 Manchester City 1 Chelsea 0
2023 FA Cup semi-finals
81,445 Brighton 0 Manchester United 0 AET (Man U won on penalties)
69,603 Manchester City 3 Sheffield United 0
2022 FA Cup semi-finals
76,238 Chelsea 2 Crystal Palace 0
72,976 Manchester City 2 Liverpool 3
2019 FA Cup semi-finals
80,092 Watford 3 Wolves 2
71,521 Manchester City 1 Brighton 0
2018 FA Cup semi-finals
84,667 Manchester United 2 Spurs 1
73,416 Chelsea 2 Southampton 0
My conclusions at the time were…:
So was it unacceptable or understandable that so many Manchester City fans failed to buy up their FA Cup semi-final allocation on Sunday at Wembley?
I have seen comments from both sides of the argument.
The fact that Manchester City fans have seen their team reach Wembley so many times, making it understandable why 10,000+ of their tickets were left unsold.
On the other hand, THIS is a chance to go to Wembley and watch your team in a massive match, an FA Cup semi-final. Why aren’t the seats full regardless?
Manchester City Empty Seats Wembley
As you can see by the attendances over the years, this isn’t a new thing.
Manchester City fans have time after time failed to sell out for FA Cup semi-finals.
The other stand out thing is that it is the same/similar story with Chelsea fans, they also have regularly failed to sell their FA Cup semi-final allocations.
A combination of success and both clubs not having fanbases big enough to support that success (following a club on social media is not the equivalent of how many fans will buy tickets to support their team!), leads to these repeated shortfalls and so many empty seats, whenever Manchester City or Chelsea get to FA Cup semi-finals.
What about this. It seems crazy to me that having failed to sell so many tickets of their previous FA Cup semi-final allocations, that Manchester City fans were given a full allocation once again. So why don’t they give Man City less 10,000+ less tickets AND offer them instead to the opposition???
Tonight
As for the match tonight, hopefully there aren’t too many empty seats amongst the Manchester City fans in the away end at St James’ Park and at least the three full blocks of tickets that were returned for this cup semi-final, were then made available to Newcastle United fans to buy.