The World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, has expressed concern over ticket prices for the Olympic Games next year, warning they will price out genuine fans and lead to empty seats.
In an unusually punchy intervention Coe, who ran the London 2012 Games, said he had spoken to Paris organisers to stress that “full stadia are absolutely a prerequisite” for the biggest Olympic sport.
Plenty of tickets remain on sale for athletics at the 80,000-seater Stade de France next summer, with prices as high as €990 for ‘Category First’ seats during evening sessions, and €690, €385, €195 or €85 for Category A-D tickets.
Coe, speaking to British journalists, made clear his unease. “These are going to be the most expensive ticket prices in an athletics arena that we have witnessed at an Olympic Games,” he said. “We asked for a balance. The most important element here is you want fans in the stadium, you want fans within affordable prices.”
Asked if he felt prices for next year’s Olympics were a concern, Coe confirmed he did, before drawing parallels with the sell-out crowds athletics enjoyed at the World Championships in Budapest last summer.
“We have made the point that these prices are lumpy. In Budapest, we had very affordable tickets. There are always going to be premium tickets but it is important that our stadiums are full of people that love our sport, not people that can afford to get to an Olympics.
“Our sport cannot afford to look marginal in big championships. It really is unacceptable. And I don’t want people to think that Budapest was a one-off. This is not a one-off. This is not an outlier. This is the new standard. And full stadia are absolutely a prerequisite.”
Similar sentiments about prices were shared earlier this year by the French judoka Amandine Buchard, who warned that her family would have “to take out a bank loan to have the chance to come and see us” as well as the middle-distance runner Jimmy Gressier, who asked: “How can we put such high prices for our sport?”
Coe said he understood Paris 2024 organisers had to generate revenue. But he said: “In London we had some expensive tickets but we also had a lot at affordable prices. These are difficult balances for any organising committee but if I am wearing my World Athletics hat, I don’t want fans or athletes and their families being costed out of the stadium.”
Meanwhile Coe gave his backing to the heptathlon world champion, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, to win at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards on Tuesday, after her brilliant comeback from a career-threatening achilles tendon rupture.
“She won something,” he said. “It’s a world championship. Of course I’m going to say this, but this isn’t being remotely disparaging about anyone else on that list. There are two truly global sports; one is football, one is track and field. And both Katarina and Josh Kerr won a world championship in one of the most fiercely competitive sports on the planet.
“Do I think there was room for both of them on that list? Of course I do. But I will be voting for her, because she’s a world champion. It was an extraordinary comeback.”
