Around 4,500 tickets for England’s World Cup quarter-final against Fiji in Marseille were still available on Tuesday with supporters seemingly unconvinced by the allure of watching Steve Borthwick’s side in France.
While both blockbuster quarter‑finals in Paris – Ireland face New Zealand on Saturday while France lock horns with South Africa 24 hours later – are sold out, tickets remain available for both of the Marseille last-eight fixtures. There are significantly more available for England’s clash with Fiji on Sunday than for Wales’s meeting with Argentina on Saturday at the 67,000-capacity venue, however.
As of Tuesday evening there were 2,926 tickets available, ranging from €75 to €300, for England’s match via the official France 2023 ticketing website as well as 1,500 and rising via resale. Around 1,400 were available for Wales’s match and 800 on resale.
England’s pool-stage matches against Argentina in Marseille, Japan in Nice and Chile and Samoa – both in Lille – were blighted by the sight of empty seats with supporters seemingly unwilling to fork out to follow Borthwick’s side.
Fans may also be put off the prospect of England’s return to Marseille after hundreds missed the kick-off in the opener having been caught in chaotic, “dangerous” queues outside the stadium, prompting the tournament organisers and World Rugby to issue a swift apology. Anecdotally, some supporters have endured miserable experiences in France, ranging from the crush in Marseille to Wales and Australia supporters being stranded outside the stadium in Lyon, eight miles out of town, to the unavailability of cold beer.
Supporter apathy seems to be a growing problem for England, however. For their farewell warm-up game against Fiji the Rugby Football Union kept the top tier of Twickenham, which holds 82,000, closed before announcing an attendance of just under 57,000. But it does not appear to be a problem that the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, recognises. Last week he was asked about the issue but incorrectly claimed that sort of figure was the norm when Pacific island teams visit. In fact, the previous visits of all three – Fiji in 2016, Samoa in 2017 and Tonga in 2021 – attracted crowds in excess of 81,000.
“I honestly don’t think there’s a dwindling of interest,” said Sweeney, who has previously described Six Nations matches and the autumn internationals, as well as Twickenham’s revamped £80m East Stand which has four hospitality restaurants and can cater for up to 4,500 supporters, as “our cash cow”.
Normally when we play an emerging nation match it tends to be 55,000‑60,000 figure. I don’t think we would expect to have an 82,000 capacity against a Fiji, Samoa or Tonga frankly. We are in a particularly difficult moment, you see in the media, the cost of living, the expense of going to a game, we know that. So perhaps we’re in a bit of a very difficult period now in terms of economics. But in terms of overall ticket sales, in terms of hospitality, we’re doing OK.
“That doesn’t mean to say we can be complacent, a number of people are saying to me, all you need to do is increase your ticket prices by 20% and you’ll still fill the stadium and that will solve all your problems. You just can’t do that. You’ve got to be conscious of the pressures of the moment in terms of the economics. I don’t think we’ve got a significant problem with that but we can’t be complacent about that.”
