Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall has highlighted the importance of the 50,000 tickets for Saturday’s north London derby being sold as opposed to given away, demonstrating the growing sustainability of the women’s game.
The Gunners are poised to break the WSL attendance record against Tottenham at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, with now more than 51,000 tickets sold for the fixture.
This would eclipse the league’s existing record crowd of 38,262 set at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for a north London derby in November 2019.
While previous WSL matches in clubs’ main stadiums have attracted five-figure crowds, this has often been with the caveat of discounted prices or ticket giveaways.
Ticket prices for Saturday’s north London derby started at £12 for adults and £6 for concessions, and Eidevall emphasised the importance of this in the context of the attendance figure and the appetite for the women’s game.
“Remember it’s 50,000 sold tickets,” said Eidevall. “It’s not giveaways, it’s not sold for a discounted price; it’s sold tickets. “I think that’s really, really special because that means doing this, the way the club has done it, it’s sustainable. It shows that the interest there is for real.
“The investment that we as a team, the club has done, but also the past generations, the teams before us have done to put us onto this stage here, that’s phenomenal. We feel that, and of course we want to go out, and we want to make the most of it so it can happen again more frequently.”
Arsenal have two further WSL fixtures at the Emirates this season, facing Manchester United in November and Chelsea in January. Should the Gunners progress past Ajax in the second leg of their Champions League qualifier on Wednesday, all of their group stage matches will also be staged there.
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