// More than 170,000 seats were left empty during Arsenal’s home games last season, according to startling new figures which cast serious doubt on the Premier League’s boast of record occupancy on the eve of the new campaign.
Attendance for matches at the Emirates Stadium recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), which counts the number of spectators who turn up to games, contrasts sharply with the official figure released by the club, which is based on tickets sold.
Data published on the blog 'a is for arsenal' following a Freedom of Information request to the MPS shows the latter recorded an average attendance of 53,788 at the 60,338-capacity ground for all Arsenal matches last season, an occupancy figure of 89.1 per cent.
That is almost 10 per cent lower than the 99.1% average released by the club and would suggest an alarming number of no-shows for matches – 173,945 in total during 2013-14, or an average of 6,550 per game. //