Having attended more than 250 games, Groundhopper Soccer Guides has a lot of experience buying tickets for Premier League and other English soccer games. Here are our tips for buying Premier League tickets and more.
This post was updated in October 2024.
How to Buy Premier League Tickets: The Basics
Premier League tickets are sold in several basic ways:
- Direct from the club, which is hard because of demand. Club members have priority here. More on that below.
- As “hospitality” packages from the club — hospitality being a seat for the game plus a benefit like lounge access, food and drinks, a stadium tour, etc.
- From official resellers and their sales agents — which includes Groundhopper Soccer Guides. We sell tickets and hospitality at 12 Premier League clubs and many others around the UK and Europe.
- From the third-party market, which is more illegal in the UK than in the US and can be pretty sketchy. Note that sellers who put their tickets up for sale here are violating club policy and UK law.
Let’s get into some more details.
Buying Premier League Tickets From the Club
This is the simplest and most obvious route for tickets, but there are still some things to know, like how clubs allocate tickets. Basically, they start with season ticket holders, then members (more on that in a moment), then the general public gets a shot. But many games never even make it to the “general sale” stage — especially at the big Premier League clubs.
Will there be a general sale for your game? It basically depends on which club you’re dealing with, and whom they’re playing. For example, if Manchester City are playing Manchester United, there’s no way that game goes on sale to the general public. If City are playing someone like Ipswich Town, there’s a better chance of a general sale — but it won’t happen until a few weeks before the game.
Many clubs also have a ticket exchange on their website, allowing season ticket holders who can’t make a game resell their tickets to paid club members.
Very few games outside the Premier League sell out, so buying straight from the club can be the way to go.
Ticket tip: If you’re buying from a club, it’s critical to pay attention to on-sale dates. Look for the “general sale” date for your match and jump on it that day, keeping in mind the different time zones. But remember it is often just a few weeks before the game!
View from our seats at Arsenal FC
Memberships: The Best Way to Buy Premier League Tickets?
If you call or email a club to ask about tickets, they may suggest you buy a membership. But do you need a membership to buy Premier League tickets?
A club membership is where you pay an annual fee for various perks like the club newsletter, a trinket of some sort, a loyalty-points account … and access to buy tickets before the “general sale” date. There are different levels at each club, and from what I’ve seen you can expect to pay around $50 per season for this. Some of them have a cheaper international or “lite” membership that gets you a chance to buy tickets for one or two games.
Having a membership does increase your chances of securing Premier League tickets, but it is not a guarantee. It just moves you up the line a bit. You may need one membership per ticket, and you may have to log in right at the on-sale time to have any chance.
Paying $50 just for the chance to maybe buy a ticket may seem silly, but I worked for two years to get any ticket to Liverpool, and I finally (barely) got one ticket to a midweek League Cup game.
Ticket tip: Many clubs do have an official resale area where members can buy and sell game tickets. This is a good reason to get a membership, especially if you just want one ticket. Getting more than one together this way is tough.
Buying Hospitality Packages in the Premier League
All clubs have various levels of suite/box experiences known as “hospitality” available — at a cost, of course. These generally include some combination of food, beverages, or stadium tour. They range from maybe $100 or less at a small club to $400-500 (and way up) at bigger clubs and at fixtures like the FA Cup Final or Champions League games.
It is important to remember that in almost all cases, during the game, you are in a regular seat. You’re not watching the game from the lounge!
For more on hospitality packages, check the video below.
Ticket Tip: The nice thing about hospitality packages is you don’t have to be a member to buy one, and you can often buy them well in advance, unlike regular tickets.
Premier League Official Ticket Resellers
One reason Premier League and other clubs will say a game is sold out is that many tickets and hospitality packages have already been sold to official resellers. These are companies who contract with the club to own many tickets for every home game — and then resell them direct to the public and/or through official registered agents. Clubs always list these resellers on their websites.
Groundhopper Soccer Guides is an official registered agent for several such resellers, which is why you can buy Premier League tickets and hospitality direct from us. Just check the menu above for whichever club you’re interested in.
An important reminder.
Buying Premier League Tickets From Third-Party Sellers
Quick vocabulary lesson: “Scalpers” in the US are called “touts” in the UK. And they are much, much less common on the streets outside of games.
That’s because it is technically against UK law to resell football tickets, unless you are authorized to do so and/or they are part of an authorized package. The companies offering this service are not based in the UK, however, so they get past this.
You won’t get in trouble for buying Premier League tickets on a site like this, but it is kind of the Wild West, and it can be quite nerve-wracking.
Ticket Tip: We recommend avoiding this market entirely, and at least reading more about Safe Buying on the Premier League tickets website, where they have a list of known unauthorized ticket resellers.
Pregame at Chelsea FC
How Much Do Premier League Tickets Cost?
To buy a Premier League ticket, expect to pay something along the lines of £40 to £60 — if you manage to get one from the club, which is tough. More on that in a bit. Over the last year, the Pound has averaged around $1.30, so we’re talking $50 to $80.
Hospitality packages at Premier League clubs can go from £100 to way up there, depending on the perks and who is playing.
For Football League tickets, like in the Championship (second tier of leagues), expect to pay about 40 quid (50 bucks). It can be even less than that in lower leagues.
For Cup games (see below), I have seen them as low as £10 pounds for a ticket.
Ticket tip: Groundhopper Guides is an official reseller of hospitality packages for many clubs in England and Europe. Get in touch for a quote!
Cups: Easier to Get Into
If you’re determined, say, to buy a Chelsea ticket to get into Stamford Bridge, you probably won’t care who they’re playing. Unless you’re loaded with cash you won’t see them play Liverpool or Arsenal, but you have a decent chance at some of the lower-level games.
One thing to watch for here is Cup games. (Here’s a quick introduction to the leagues and cups of English soccer). They tend to be a bit cheaper and easier to get, at least in earlier rounds, against smaller opponents. I got killer seats at Old Trafford (for about $50) for a League Cup game on a Tuesday night in January. It was a semifinal leg, but it was the David Moyes season, and the fans were losing faith. Also, the opponents were Sunderland, not one of the heavyweights of the sport.
Another fun thing about Cup games is that there will be more away fans, due to Cup rules. So when I saw Sunderland win that game at Man United, instead of the usual 3,000 away fans at a League game, there were 9,000 delirious Sunderland fans in the end having the time of their lives.
Ticket tip: Pay attention to when the draws for each round are announced, usually right after the previous round is finished. Set up Google News Alerts for “fa cup draw” and “efl cup draw” to make sure you know about them. Or just check in regularly at thefa.com for the FA Cup and efl.com for what everybody calls the League Cup.
Oxford United are a fun day out from London — and yes, it’s in that Oxford!
Football League Tickets: “I Just Want to See a Game!”
If you’re like me and don’t care about seeing only the top teams, you should definitely consider buying Football League tickets instead of a Premier League tickets.
English football is arranged in a pyramid, with the Premier League at the top with 20 teams; under that, in three leagues of 24 each, are the Championship, League One, and League Two – collectively called the Football League. All of these are much easier, and cheaper, tickets to get – unless you’re talking about a rivalry game (aka a “derby”), a big Cup game, or a late-season game with major consequences in the table (standings).
Learn more about all the lower-league clubs in and around London.
For example, if you’re going to London and want to catch a game, any game, there are, in (or within an hour of) Greater London:
- 7 Premier League teams: Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham
- 5 Championship teams: Queens Park Rangers, Luton Town, Millwall, Oxford United, and Watford
- 7 League One teams: Cambridge United, Charlton Athletic, Crawley Town, Leyton Orient, Reading, Stevenage, Wycombe Wanderers
- 3 League Two teams: Bromley, Gillingham, and Wimbledon.
And that’s just in the Premier League and Football League!
I created this Google Map of the top six tiers of leagues around the UK; zoom in on London and select the different leagues to see what I’m talking about.
The same situation is true of other big cities like Manchester and Birmingham, so don’t limit yourself to just the Premier League. In many ways, I find the Football League to be a more enjoyable experience, with smaller stadiums and longtime dedicated fans.
Buying Away Team Premier League Tickets
If you want to buy an Arsenal ticket but they are playing away from home, you might wonder Why not buy an Arsenal away ticket? The answer is that it is virtually impossible to do so legally. Premier League away tickets are like gold dust, and the only want to get one is via the sketchy third-party market.
Looking to buy Premier League tickets? Fill out this form and let us know which fixtures you’re interested in, and we’ll send you a quote.
