Since spring, the RPL has had a total Fan ID: we have already been saddened by the views of the Spartak arena in the new conditions, and now we are moving to St. Petersburg, where Zenit (despite huge efforts) has collected a record low attendance.
19,705 – this number of spectators was reported on the scoreboard during the match with Pari NN (3:0). The average attendance of “Zenith” in the first half of the championship – 34 thousand.
“Zenith” closed the upper tier (for the TV picture). Fans were lured with a car raffle and free snacks
The picture from St. Petersburg did not look like a complete failure – all because the club closed the upper tier for sale. Because of this, there were no big bald spots at the bottom.
Although it was not easy to lure people to the lower tier. To do this, the club arranged several promotions: a Lada draw, a free set with snacks and drinks for each fan, discounts on food at food outlets, gifts for girls on the eve of Women’s Day.
To fix the unusually quiet support, the stadium even turned on an artificial whistle and fan charges during the match! Here’s what it looked like:
That’s not all the problems. According to the Sever.Realii publication *, employees of St.
* – the publication is included by the Ministry of Justice of Russia in the register of foreign agents.
The previous anti-record of Gazprom Arena in the RPL (excluding covid) is 20 thousand. Then they also closed the upper tier
In 2021, the team from Nizhny Novgorod already played at the half-empty Zenith stadium – then 16,575 spectators came, but only because of coronavirus restrictions.
Before the pandemic, Zenit averaged about 50 thousand spectators , claiming to be the most visited club in Eastern Europe. The anti-record at the Gazprom Arena in the endless RPL is 20,003 spectators, which happened in 2017, in the very first match at the new stadium. Then the game with the Urals became a test, so the second tier (as now) was artificially closed.
A little more came to Sochi in October 2022 – 20,184 fans. But already in the next match with Akhmat, there were 34,565 spectators in the stands, which is equal to the average attendance this season.
Now Zenit can roll back to the time when the team was still playing at Petrovsky. That stadium purely technically accommodated 21,000.
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