Yesterday’s piece on Everton’s matchday ticket freeze touched a nerve, with Evertonians pointing to April’s season ticket rise as evidence of a club that isn’t listening.
But if we widen the scope to the rest of the Premier League, it’s not as simple as “Everton fans are being ripped off.”
Where Everton actually sit
Everton’s cheapest adult season ticket for 2026/27 is £640, up around 5% on last season’s £608. That’s roughly the middle of the table. West Ham (£345) and a frozen Manchester City (£425) sit well below.
Arsenal (£967), Chelsea (£880) and Tottenham (£856) sit well above, even with Spurs freezing theirs this summer. On price alone, Everton fans aren’t among the worst-treated in the league.
The ‘freeze’ list is less kind to the club. Man City, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Tottenham have all held prices flat for 2026/27. Everton haven’t.
Neither have Newcastle, who raised theirs by the same 5%. Liverpool went up around 3% to £734.50, and their fans have complained too — Everton aren’t alone, even if that may not land well on Merseyside.
The context that cuts both ways
Everton’s rise, of course, follows an £802m stadium build, and clubs financing new grounds tend to lean harder on ticket revenue — Tottenham did the same after their move.
Everton point to an £8.6m loss last season and Squad Cost Ratio compliance as the reason the Fan Advisory Board’s three-year freeze request didn’t happen. Those pressures are, unfortunately, very real.
Against that: Everton finished 13th last season, nowhere near the European football that makes a price rise easier to accept. And the club froze matchday prices for one-off visitors in the same window season ticket holders took a hit — poor optics whichever way you look at it and a terrible example of ‘reading the room.’
So are Evertonians hard done by?
Well, if it’s any consolation, they’re not alone. Plenty of fans elsewhere pay more for less. But “not the worst in the league” was never the bar supporters were measuring the club against.
The comparison that stings isn’t Arsenal or Chelsea. It’s Man City, Forest and Palace — clubs that found a way to freeze prices this summer, when Everton didn’t.
But the bigger picture – one that’s not about to change – is that this is football’s problem.
Remember when football was the sport of the working class? Long time ago.
