Manchester City fans have yet another cup final.
The big question is, how many of them will bother going to it?
I couldn’t get a ticket for Wednesday night at the Etihad an so I watched our 3-1 defeat on TV.
As it all went wrong in the opening 32 minutes and Newcastle United found themselves five down on aggregate in their Carabao Cup semi-final, my mind went elsewhere, kind of.
I have always loved the philosophical riddle: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
That came to mind as I looked at all the empty seats inside the Etihad last night, if no Manchester City fans are there to hear it, does the ball make a noise when it hits the back of the net?
Yes, the ball does make a noise, or rather yes, the Manchester City fans did make a noise when their players scored each goal, but not much of a one.
Large sections in the home areas were totally closed off inside the Etihad and those that were open, had countless empty seats.
The away end was of course sold out with all 5,359 tickets snapped up, United could have sold two or three times as many, despite two down from the first leg. There are over 100,000 Newcastle United members who can’t ever buy a single away ticket, that is just for starters.
The official attendance was announced as 41,834 but looking around all the empty seats, you had to find that dubious, the home club trying to dilute the derision that they can attract so few Manchester City fans for a home semi-final.
Even if you believed that official attendance, you are talking only 36,000 Manchester City fans there last night and realistically less than 30,000, once you are knocking off corporates and football tourists.
Home AND Away
The thing is, it wasn’t just the home leg and Manchester City fans able to point at the two goal advantage they possessed (although surely that should be irrelevant when this is a match that decides whether you get to a cup final?!!!!).
For the first leg at St James’ Park, Manchester City fans were allocated 4,893 tickets, but 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. Only around 3,000 Manchester City fans inside SJP, with a third of their allocation returned unsold.
Less than a year ago
As it happens, less than a year 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 last year, 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???
Buying success outstrips support
The Manchester City owners have been allowed to buy their huge success, putting in crazy amounts of money to establish financial power and dominance, then in more recent years, only needing to top that up with ever bigger deals on the commercial side.
However, the moderate size of the Manchester City fanbase has simply failed to match that ridiculous level of spending that has bought ridiculous levels of success on the pitch.
When it comes to fans actually going to matches (or not as the case may be…), not just showing their ‘support’ on social media, there just aren’t enough Manchester City fans.
The club’s owners have created a modern day monster, a club that is hugely successful on and off the pitch (thanks to all the dubious ways they have built that…), but a club that hasn’t got anything like enough Manchester City fans to go to the matches.
The moderate size of their fanbase, means those Man City supporters can only afford the time and money to go to a certain number of matches, with unlike their team, not able to call on the same strength in depth to fill in for the absentees to fill the terraces.
This is a horrific angle of modern day football, in the past the cup competitions saw so many clubs outside the handful of elite ones, getting the chance to not only get to finals, but also win them! Along with their fanbases fully engaging with that rare success.
Even the Carabao Cup now is a competition that the ‘big’ clubs are desperate to win.
Before Newcastle United won it last season, the previous 11 finals saw Manchester City win six, Liverpool two, Manchester United two and Chelsea once.
I suppose the question that now occurs to me, if the likes of Manchester City keep winning all of these trophies but it is to a backdrop of so many empty seats, what is the point of it all?