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| Tuesday, 13 July 2010 16:10 |
Leiria to stay putClub reaches accord with city's officials Good news for Uniao de Leiria supporters as the club announced that they will be reminaing in the city and play all of their matches at the Estadio Dr. Magalhaes Pessoa.
Terms of he deal were not disclosed, but the club issued a brief statement through their website saying they will remain in the city of Leiria and play the entire season at the aforementioned ground. At one point the situation looked grim for Lis as the organisation were finding it difficult to cope with the expenses of running the team in they city without any financial aid. The economic situation in Portugal appeared to have taken its toll on another Portuguese club, but a relief plan was drafted up by members of the club and city officials to ensure, at least for one more season, that top-flight football will continue to be played in Leiria. by Marco Pereira |
A team like Vitoria Setubal, is in a big enough city where it should be doing all it can to get fans to the game. The city and it's surroundng area is big enough to draw fans to the stadium.
When visiting, I saw nothing that would suggest that even a game was going on that weekend. Even if the ticket prices were low, you wouldn't know it.
I know that it's hard to dish out cash without certainty that you could get a return. But, these teams need to put a three year plan in place.
They have to promote the game if not the team and use the opposition as an attraction if needed as well. Let kids younger than 16 for free, for the really dismal games.
Something, anything would be better than it is.
Guimaraes (4th best in attendance) actually out drew Braga (5th), averaging 15,884 to 14,274.
The next best was Academica (6th) with a dismal average of 4,960. They only filled the stadium to 16.5% capacity.
With regards to attracting more fans, it seems to be a different ball game in Portugal. For example, I can buy the Porto shirt far cheaper in England than I can in a regular store in Portugal. Considering people in England generally earn more than those in Portugal, it appears clubs are missing out on the commerical side of the game, all of which helps to draw fans to games. Maybe this is something that needs to change...?
The only clubs besides "The Big Three", only Braga and Guimaraes has any real following. The drop off of average attendance from those five is huge. It's almost 10,000 spectators less, per game.
Leiria averaged 3,481, and that's with 22,676 showing up for Benfica, 8,689 for Braga, 4,365 for Sporting but only 2,694 for Porto in the meaningless last game of the season. Guimaraes also only drew 1,373 so they don't travel well.
This season we have Beira Mar coming into Liga ZON Sagres, who will be playing in the beautifull 33,000 seat Stadio Municipal de Aveiro. We'll see how they draw.
The fact is that more should be done to draw more fans to the stadiums. Teams are pocketing the TV money and it seems as if they see the stadium fans has a nuisance instead of an opportunity.
There doesn't seem to be any outreach to the community. I know that most Portuguese root for one of the "Big Three", but that doesn't mean that smaller teams can't go out and draw. When I went to Portugal I went to see Benfica play, but I also grabbed the opportunity to see Belenenses. Trust me, there was nothing drawing me there. I went because I was in Lisbon and Benfica was on the road, and since I was near by, I caught the game. By the way, Belem beat Naval 2-0, but only 2,664 showed up. Which was actually short of their 3,377 average.