Students face rising costs to attend Scottish Premiership matches amid across-the-board ticket price hikes, according to new data.
Eight of the twelve 2024-25 Scottish Premiership clubs are charging students more than in the previous season, with the cheapest available tickets now ranging from £15 at Ross County to £34 at Celtic.
The biggest increase has been made by Hibernian, where students must now pay full adult prices – starting from £24 to attend league matches. A £16 student ticket offered in the 2023-24 campaign has since been removed from the club’s pricing structure, while Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen also operate without a student ticket category.
With no student or young adult concession, even a 17-year-old can expect to pay at least £34 to attend league matches at Celtic Park. However, Aberdeen and Rangers do include a discounted option for young people aged below 21.
Meanwhile, the average price of the cheapest adult ticket has increased by 18% since pre-pandemic, leaving Aberdeen, Motherwell and St Johnstone as the only teams yet to charge above £25.
The cheapest adult season ticket for the twelve 2024-25 Premiership sides is also 15% more expensive than in the 2019-20 season.
These findings come as some Scottish football teams face online backlash from supporters over high ticket prices.
Kilmarnock charged adults £30, concessions (over-65s, students and under-21s) £25, under-18s £20 and £12 for under-16s at the beginning of the 2024-25 season, announcing new ‘digital discounts’ in September which lowered the cost of all categories.
The Ayrshire club cited the jump in prices from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 campaign as “a means of covering increasing costs”.
In the Championship, Scotland’s second tier, Hamilton Academical amended ticket prices twice in the space of ten days in September. Original prices for the current season included a £26 fee for adults, more expensive than the cheapest adult ticket at four clubs in the division above.
The Scottish Football Supporters Association (SFSA) supported the publication of ‘The Review of the Game’, a report dedicated to the “rebuilding” of Scottish football, which included a discussion on rising ticket prices.
“It’s a thorny question,” the SFSA’s Director of Operations Alastair Blair said. “Because clubs obviously need to pay a decent wage to attract a reasonable standard of player.”
At Kilmarnock, higher ticket prices have coincided with the club finishing fourth in the Scottish Premiership, qualifying for European football and spending small transfer fees on a few players, while the Old Firm continue to strive to match the standard of continental competition.
The SFSA’s paper has recommended away ticket price caps with “instances of differential pricing causing grief for fans”, Blair said.
“St Johnstone fans (of which I am one) were charged significantly more than local fans, for a family of four, at the fixture at Kilmarnock earlier this season.
“It’s easy to say there should be a cap, but while fans might applaud this, they would then get very annoyed if it meant one fewer player in their club’s squad,” he added.
Despite ticket price inflation, the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) said in May that the leagues’ total attendance record had been broken for the second season running.
Scotland also had the highest per capita crowds in Europe for the 2023-24 season, according to UEFA.
But watching matches in the Scottish top flight is often more expensive than many major European clubs. This writer attended league games last season at AC Milan (€19), SL Benfica (€22.50) and Valencia CF (€27.17), each cheaper than the current cost of a ticket for any Scottish Premiership club, suggesting greater affordability within European football.
Fourth year Journalism & Spanish student. Mostly writing about sport, politics and culture. X: @_archiewillis
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