Highest attendances in 2022: Man Utd surpass BVB & Barça - 13 British stadiums in top 50

The world’s most popular football stadium in 2022 is not Signal Iduna Park or Camp Nou, but Old Trafford. The reason why Manchester United played their home games at the Theatre of Dreams in front of the most fans on average were not necessarily their performances, although they reached an impressive 2.21 points per home game, but the Covid regulations in many other countries at the beginning of the year. In the UK, the year 2022 directly started with full stadiums.

As a result, the first three places, which otherwise traditionally go to the homes of Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, are occupied by different grounds this time. Man United (average attendance 73,690) are followed by Barcelona (71,564) and only then by Dortmund (62,894), who played their first three Bundesliga home games in 2022 once in front of 750 spectators and twice in front of 10,000 fans. From April on, things took their usual course and Signal Iduna Park was sold out regularly with 81,365 visitors.

Man Utd only fourth International attendance ranking in 2022/23 Click here for overview Bayern Munich (60,362) ranked fifth in 2022 behind West Ham (61,118). The Bundesliga giants averaged 2.43 points per home game, which also made them one of the ten strongest home teams of the year. Celtic (48,766) did not drop a single point at home in the league throughout the calendar year, winning all 15 of their home games. Paris Saint-Germain (40,701) and Stade Rennais (26,027) follow behind the Scots with an average of 2.65 points, ahead of PSV Eindhoven (30,102), whose fans celebrated 2.57 points per game, Manchester City (53,043) with 2.53 points on average and Cruzeiro (41,037) from Brazil with 2.52 points per game.

11 English stadiums in top 50 - Hamburger SV best second division club

In addition to Manchester United, eleven other English clubs in the ranking also benefited from the Premier League relaxing Covid regulations early. Seven of the 15 most-attended stadiums in 2022 are in England, including Newcastle’s St James’ Park. After the Saudi owners took over in October 2021, the Magpies initially managed to stay in the league and are in third place this season. The sporting success is also reflected in the attendance figures. For the first time since 2005/06, an average of more than 52,000 people have visited the stadium for home games. Internationally, Newcastle rank 15th with 52,177 visitors.

No other second division club in the world – due to the data available, the figures are limited to the European leagues as well as Brazil and the USA – attracted more spectators to their own stadium than German side Hamburger SV. The average of 38,972 is enough for 36th place and thus a better rank than international top clubs like Frankfurt (38,821), Chelsea (37,255) and Napoli (36,150). In West Ham, Tottenham (60,094), Arsenal (60,028) and Chelsea, four London-based sides make the top 50.