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Analysis: The reality behind away fan culture in Spanish football, changes, growth and obstacles

On the 3rd of February 2024, moments before kick off, a large banner unfurled reading “Hamburg on the banks of the Elbe, how majestic you are to behold”. A sea of red flares then lit up the dark prematch scenery so bright that it obscured those holding them underneath. Fifteen-thousand voices roared in unison, completing a remarkable spectacle of smoke, song and support.

This display of loyalty was thanks to the fans of Hamburger SV who on that day watched their team run out 2-1 winners over Hertha Berlin. The team’s captain Jonas Meffert said to club channels post game that what helped them over the line was the atmosphere their fans had created in the stadium. Except they weren’t in their own stadium. They were nearly 300 kilometers away in Hertha Berlin’s Olympiastadion. The away fans made up over a quarter of the match day attendance in one of the country’s largest capacity stadiums. Not forgetting of course, that this is the second division of German football we are talking about.

A video of this “phenomenon” was shared around by various Spanish social media football accounts and was branded as “impossible to be seen in Spain” by one and met with reaction of awe and even jealousy by others. A match that sees fifteen-thousand away fans has likely never been seen in a Spanish football stadium and likely will never be seen. So why is a country that has some of Europe’s best teams, fiercest rivalries and breathtaking stadiums so far behind when it comes to the culture of ‘away days’? 

 

Geography

When we think of a country with such a rich history of football culture like Spain, it may come as a surprise that there is an element so present and established in other countries, seemingly missing over in the Iberian peninsula. To get a better understanding of the lack of away fan culture, we must first get a better understanding of Spain as a country – starting off with its geography. 

Rather looked beyond by most, Spain is big. Really big. So big in fact that it boasts the longest distance between two football clubs in the top 5 divisions of European football in the current 2023-24 season. If fans of Las Palmas or Girona want to watch their team play at the other’s ground, they would have to travel an astonishing 2,257km. In other words, more than twice the length of the United Kingdom. 

The keen eyed will point out that Las Palmas is a team based in the Canary Islands, some 1,500km from mainland Spain. So I raise to you the 1,200km journey between the clubs of Cadiz and Girona, both on the mainland. When compared to the 605km journey made by the Newcastle and Bournemouth fans (the longest in the current Premier League season) you’ll forgive the gironistas and gaditanos for staying at home.

The average away journey in La Liga this season is 621km which is nearly three times the average trip made in the Premier League. And although Spain ranks second on the global leaderboard in the number of kilometers of high speed railway lines, access from one corner of the country to another isn’t as easy as it seems. The majority of these rail lines pass through the capital city of Madrid in the center of the country which elongates journey times considerably. 

MAPAS ESPAÑA-ITALIA CLUBES DE FÚTBOL - EXILIADOS UNIONISTAS
Image via Exiliados Unionistas

The option of flying these longer journeys presents the same logistical headache of navigating through Madrid. For those who do choose to undertake the task of traveling to an away game, be it via land or air, they will be left with very little in the bank, making it hard to do so often. The price of train and air tickets are on the rise amidst the rest of the cost of living crisis.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are pockets of Spanish football that give us an insight of just how important away fan culture can be to some clubs. An interesting development in the post pandemic years has been the increased away support in the lower leagues of Spanish football. The teams of Primera Federacion (third tier) and Segunda Federacion (fourth tier) have lately seen fans accompany them regularly, often in large numbers, including the incredible show of support from the 6,000 Malaga faithful who made the trip to their match against Granada B in late January 2024. 

What predominantly makes this possible is that these tiers are split into regionalised groups; the third tier being split into two roughly north and south divided groups, and the second tier being split into five even more localised leagues. Naturally with travel distance down, away fan numbers go up. 

 

Match Times

A day out at the football also becomes far easier to do when it stays at just that – a day. Without convenient match times, that becomes impossible. Lower league football in Spain understandably doesn’t generate the same pull from TV audiences as the top divisions which allows the Spanish football federation (RFEF) to schedule matches at sensible times in the third, fourth and fifth tiers. This means fans can travel, watch the match and travel back home without booking accommodation. They might even have time to enjoy a post game cerveza.

Multiple games in these leagues often happen at the same time, which is something that cannot be said for the scheduling of La Liga and it’s little brother Segunda, the top two leagues in Spanish football. For further context it’s important to understand that these two leagues are organised by La Liga who are a completely separate entity to the national governing body and therefore are under no obligation to follow the same structure.

As the Premier League continues to dominate the global viewing figures and year on year increase the revenue generated from broadcasting rights, Europe’s other leagues have looked for alternative ways to sell their product. 

Outside of Spain, La Liga’s primary target market has been on the other side of the Atlantic, with American interest proving to be profitable. The league’s own channel La Liga TV operates entirely in English and ESPN FC has all 380 games at their disposal. This is all before we head south in the Americas and see that ESPN Deportes, their Latin American channel shown primarily in Mexico and Argentina, also has the full fixture list.

This has seen Javier Tebas (La Liga President) make the decision to optimise the viewership by allocating an individual match time to each fixture meaning that – if you wanted to – you could watch every minute of a La Liga or La Liga 2 round of weekend fixtures. The typical weekend will see a Friday night game kicking off at 9pm, followed by Saturday and Sunday both having four games with 2pm, 4:15pm, 6:30pm and 9pm. If you’re unlucky enough, your trip will involve a Monday 9pm kick off.

This contributes to your team having a 60% chance of playing post 6:30pm every match day. Put differently, fans will have to stay overnight in the majority of cases statistically. A further reduction of accessibility to these fixtures for the away fans thanks to La Liga’s continued infatuation of looking after their pocket.

Looking over to their English and German counterparts, the latest kick off time you can typically expect on a Saturday and Sunday is 5:30pm local time. That’s not to say there aren’t Friday or Monday matches, or the odd later kick off on the weekend, but the frequency is dramatically less. And if the English or Germans do have to arrange a Monday morning off work to allow themselves time to travel home, they will be able to do it much further in advance than the Spanish.

 

Organisation

Normally, a time will be set for a La Liga match less than a month before it takes place leaving insufficient time to coordinate travel. When teams average over 600km travel per game, these are mini holidays that need to be planned in advance, and to work around the day to day lives of the working class football aficionados. 

Having said that, a few weeks in advance is a luxury compared to the absolute absurdity of what occurs when it comes to arranging the Copa del Rey at the turn of the year. For context, the RFEF have an obsession with racing through the rounds of the cup, scheduling three rounds (R32, R16, QF) all to be played in January and the two legged semi finals before the end of February. Logic would suggest to play some rounds before the winter break, or to prolong the later rounds throughout the spring but when talking about those pulling the strings in Spanish football, ‘logic’ isn’t a word that often enters the arena.

So with a new round of the cup having to be supposedly arranged on a weekly basis, it gives those ‘lucky’ clubs who make it through, a logistical head scratch on how to prepare. As for the fans, this congested run of fixtures all happening right after the festive season makes for even the wealthiest of faithful fans to be left scraping the barrel looking for funds if their team were to go on a cup run.

The impact of the Copa on clubs and their supporters extends further. Cup games in this period are played in midweek and because the RFEF ultimately has the final word, they don’t need to take the La Liga calendar into consideration. Often this causes league fixtures to be unthinkably rearranged with less than 7 days notice.

Take the most recent quarterfinal round as an example. What the governing body believe to be the two most appealing quarter-finals to the TV audience werre placed as standalone matches on the Tuesday and Thursday, with the other two happening on the Wednesday night. As these are planned barely a week before, it would be assumed that the match on the Thursday night would be played by two teams with league fixtures on the Sunday or Monday. No. This Thursday fixture involved teams playing their next league match within 48 hours, and were thus rescheduled. 

Remember, the RFEF are superior to La Liga when it comes to scheduling, so it’s up to La Liga to rearrange any fixtures after these hastily organised cup ties. Fixtures that already have set dates, times, ticket allocation and prices. 

Whilst the corporations responsible for how Spanish football is run fight amongst each other over time slots to best maximise the revenue made from TV audiences, it’s truly astonishing that no-one has paused to think about how it might be affecting the most loyal and important piece of the puzzle: the fans. And for the away fans it’s much easier and understandable to just say ‘why bother?’

 

Ticket Prices

Let’s say you’re one of those who do bother. Hopefully you have deep pockets. Don’t expect any of the twenty is plenty Bundesliga narrative. Up until this current 2023-24 season, clubs had full authority to charge any price they wanted for away fans which led to clubs taking advantage of the ‘bigger’ teams, derby days and games with reasonable kick off times that would be seen as a favourable match to attend away from home. Extortionate prices of up to three figures were a regularity for Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid fans to have to pay to go and see their team away.

There has since been an agreement across 16 of the 20 La Liga clubs to keep ticket prices at a maximum of €30 for traveling fans. A step in the right direction. However, this deal was rejected by Real Madrid, Osasuna, Villareal and Rayo Vallecano. A ticket for Atleti fans to go across the city and watch their team at the Santiago Bernabeu last season set them back €90. Oh, and they were only allocated 150 of them.

 

Matchday Experience

After tolerating the distance, logistics, finances and messy organisation, the very few who do make it to away games are faced with yet more conniption-inducing factors that contribute to this void of culture. The experience itself can only be described as disheartening. 

It’s not exclusive to Spanish football that away fans are banished high up into the far reaches of stadiums. Not least, at a previously mentioned team in the Premier League where, after making the long drive up, away fans are sent seemingly into orbit at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park. However when we think of the great atmospheric stadiums of England such as Villa Park, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, we see the away section being at the same level as the pitch. In the example used at the start of this piece, those Hamburg fans had a great view of the game in the bottom tier of the ground. I’m not saying that home teams need to roll the red carpet out for their visitors, but in Spain they could very least treat them as fans and not animals.

Netting, metal cages and even plastic screening are found in all stadiums in the Spanish top flight with an unnecessarily heavy amount of police presence both in and around the stadium. Without fail, dressed head to toe in riot gear, intimidating fans of any creed. Because of this, the type of away fan brave enough to endure this tends to be the ones they might there for. Those with a deeper knowledge of some Spanish football clubs will know this can extend to a more extreme group of people. Security is of course an important measure, but encouraging better support for away teams in Spain requires clubs and local authorities to do so in a way that welcomes visitors, not criminalises them. 

One small example is that you will never hear mention of the away fans over the tannoy at a La Liga match, something customary elsewhere. Albeit a polite gesture usually derided with a chorus of traditional boos, it’s a nice touch that doesn’t alienate the traveling contingent from the rest of the stadium.

 

Conclusion

There are anomalies to this rhetoric and it’s not to say that the whole breadth and depth of Spanish football is like this, however a culture is built upon how a majority moves, and this is the reality in Spain at the moment. Football fans in Spain are just as passionate as you’ll find anywhere else. That passion is channeled through more accessible means, rather than putting themselves through all this hardship to see their team play away.

For example, there are Spanish clubs that have some of the highest percentage of season ticket holders relative to stadium capacity in all of Europe. You’ll also see them fill their own stadium on a hot summer day to welcome signings, or on a baltic winter morning to see their team at a festive open training session. The culture of showing loyalty to your team is focused in different areas.

If you do want to see a strong away support in this magnificent country, cast your eyes down the leagues, or to keep your eye out for any newly promoted clubs that may look like their time in the top flight is going to be short-lived. Fans of smaller clubs like to make the most of their time in La Liga whilst it lasts, which is why you would have seen scores of Huesca fans appearing across games in the 2018-19 season. Or wait until the continental cup competitions, and you’ll see how Real Betis fans flood the streets of Prague or Atletico supporters take over the city of Manchester. 

For Spain to rival Europe’s leaders in away fan culture, a lot more has to be done for those on the ground. Tebas is trying to put La Liga in front of the world’s eyes by making it an international consumer product in the same way that McDonald’s markets their Big Mac, or Hollywood promotes its movies. But for footballto be attractive to the global audience, those who are physically present need a thought spared for them too. An entire culture change is highly unlikely, but measures need to be put in place so that it doesn’t keep becoming more difficult year after year for fans to have their away days. 

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