Scottish Premiership crowds topped four million for the first time last season as the league continues to attract the highest per capita attendances in Europe reports the BBC Sport Scotland…
Hibs v Celtic, Easter Road, Scottish Premiership, 3 May 2026. Photo Photograph by Vagelis Georgariou
From a 4.1m total, average gates in the top flight reached 17,903, up by 3%, as Celtic defended their title thanks to a dramatic final-day victory at home to nearest challengers Hearts.
Celtic recorded 1,112,508 home league admissions last season with the Scottish Champions being the only club from outside the big five league to make it into the top twenty. Putting it int the context of this week’s Celtic news regarding the Celtic PLC financial results it is clear to see how important the supporters’ cash is to the football club.
Every year that Celtic support puts in around £50m into the coffers of the club yet are denied any sort of voice through fan representation. Never mind a fan advisory board, the Celtic Board won’t even allow supporters to ask any questions through the Celtic fan media which has been banned pending a club review for almost a year.
Pay up and shut up is the way Celtic treats the support
We have written to Celtic to ask when this review will take place but have not had a response from Iain Jamieson (pictured below) who heads up Celtic’s PR operation.
Adjusting average crowds for population puts Scotland way out in front with close to 20 attendees per 1,000 residents, nearly twice the figure for the next best nation, Norway.
Figures published by UEFA show approximately six million Scottish supporters watched men’s matches during the 2025-26 campaign, with 900,000 in the lower leagues, 200,000 at domestic cup ties and 800,000 at European matches.
That’s an impressive number when you consider only the big ‘five’ leagues in England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands attracted bigger audiences overall.
The competitive nature of last season’s title battle, as well as the climatic conclusion would have helped boost the crowds.
Celtic, who of course boost the biggest stadia in the country, and naturally attract the biggest crowds have played a massive part in these impressive figures for our small nation.
The Champions were the only club outside Europe’s big five leagues to exceed one million for home Premiership crowds.
Our Glasgow rivals the Rangers can still boast to have broke the one million barrier when it came to all competitions, but fell short domestically.
Although on a negative note for the Scottish game, the reports also shows just over two-thirds of all Scottish Premiership minutes last season were played by non-Scots.
The European average is 47%, with only Greece, Portugal and Turkey having a lower percentage of locally trained talent than Scotland. Norway, Spain, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Sweden were the only nations with figures above 60%.
Nutmeg has more on these attendance and other associated figures that have been released and it’s well worth a read…
Interesting Nutmeg piece on UEFA’s new report that’s just been released.
Celtic ranked 13th in Europe for home league attendance.
They were the only club outside the top five leagues to exceed 1m.
Across all competitions, Rangers also passed 1m, one of only 36 clubs to do so. https://t.co/XAkBZPpueI pic.twitter.com/m1sjOG48Kw
— Scotland’s Coefficient (@scotlandscoeff1) September 25, 2026
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