Abuse, ticket problems, space: The many problems facing disabled fans at Premier League clubs

This article contains language and accounts of abuse directed at people with disabilities, which some will find offensive.

Lindsay Knott was walking down the stairs into the concourse at half-time of a game a couple of years ago.

She is classed as an ambulant disabled person in that she doesn’t rely on a wheelchair to get around, but is significantly impaired in a range of ways including suffering from ME, chronic pain and fatigue, as well as severe tinnitus — not the mild ringing in the ears that someone who has been to a lot of concerts might suffer, but an aggressive, constant noise.

As such, when she goes to football she wears ear defenders, the sort you might see someone wearing on a building site when using an industrial power drill.

As she reached the concourse, a man jumped out in front of her and stuck his face right into hers, clearly and aggressively mocking her, mouthing obscenities and generally behaving in a threatening manner.

“I’m not so bad now, but for the rest of that season I was nervous about coming down the concourse at half-time,” she says. “They didn’t do that because I was small, or any other reason, it was because I was wearing ear defenders because I have a disability.”

Knott is the chair of the Nottingham Forest Disabled Supporters Association and is open about the fact her experience isn’t as bad as others she works with. At an away game last season, a fan with cerebral palsy was called “a retard” outside the stadium. Another was called a “mongol”, the latter’s distress compounded when the police informed them that this wasn’t an offensive term.

This, depressingly, seems to be part of an increasing trend. According to a survey released earlier this year by Level Playing Field, the charity that acts as a campaigning and advocacy vehicle for disabled sports fans in the UK, abuse and ‘the attitudes of others’ rose to become the second-most common barrier to attending live sport for disabled people, behind physical access. The respondents to the survey who said disability abuse has prevented them from attending sporting events has increased steadily over the last four years, from 5.5 per cent in 2021, to 6.5 per cent, 7 and now 8.5 per cent in 2025.

The survey also raised issues that those of us who don’t have to deal with a significant disability have probably never considered. Almost a quarter of respondents reported that difficulty obtaining tickets, whether because of a limited number of disabled places or problems with the increasing digitisation of tickets, was a significant barrier to attending. Public transport is another huge factor.

While progress has undoubtedly been made and many clubs do excellent work in making their games as welcoming as possible, attending live football is still enormously difficult for anyone with a disability.

“Football is a leveller,” says Knott. “By the time I’m in my seat, I’m not a disabled person; I’m one Forest fan surrounded by 30,000 other Forest fans.

“To a disabled person, it’s even more upsetting if you can’t go and it has even more of a benefit if you can go. For some people with disabilities, it’s the only time they go out. It means such a lot, and that’s why it’s really important that we make it as accessible as possible.”

This piece is not comprehensive, because different people encounter such a wide range of issues it’s impossible to cover all of them. However, it will highlight some of them, including those that may never be considered by able-bodied supporters.

Tickets

The problems usually start well before a disabled person gets anywhere near the stadium.

Kevin Murray is a Chelsea fan of 50 years. He has severely restricted sight: not quite entirely blind, but can only really see in his peripheral vision. Until recently, going to games was, if not easy, as simple as it could be for someone with his condition.

Murray’s main issue now is ticketing, specifically digital ticketing, which Premier League clubs voted to become mandatory across the board by the 2026-27 season, but is already in place with several clubs.

Previously, Murray had a season card for home games, and for away games could get a printout of both his ticket and, for the games he required one, an assistant to help him. He now has to have the required QR code in his personal ticketing account on his phone, and then another QR code for his assistant’s ticket, which has to be in a separate account, but also on his phone. If you think it’s not too much to ask for someone to find and present a QR code from their phone, bear in mind that his vision impairments mean it takes him about 40 minutes to write and send a two- or three-line email.

“I can’t see the thing to navigate where to do all the downloads,” he says. “When I use my phone, I know where this is and that is — I don’t mess about with it, because when I do it messes everything up.”

The implementation of the digital edict, and thus whether specific exceptions can be made for people like Murray, is not from the Premier League but down to individual clubs. It’s relatively early in this process, so it will undoubtedly improve. But even where there are accommodations the process can be laborious, to say the least.

Murray recounts a punishingly complex process of trying to arrange a physical ticket for Chelsea’s game against Manchester City in January that took the best part of week, involved five phone calls, many more emails, several consultations with various supervisors and at the end of it all, he was given the wrong place to collect his tickets.

Making everything digital may theoretically mean the ticketing process is more streamlined and efficient for some, but for Murray it has simply put another barrier between him and being able to attend games.

“I don’t know who’s implementing all this. It might make things easier for them, but it’s making it a hell of a lot more difficult for the likes of me. I’m going to stop going if I have to do this every game.”

Space at stadiums

The FA recently announced that the England men’s team will play a friendly against Senegal this summer at the City Ground in Nottingham. In theory a nice move, continuing a semi-regular initiative to take the national side around the country a little more.

But it also served to highlight an ongoing problem: the City Ground is one of several Premier League grounds that don’t provide the number of recommended wheelchair places for sporting venues in the UK.

The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) has a rough formula that they advise venues to abide by, which suggests a number of wheelchair places in relation to the capacity of a stadium. As it stands, according to numbers published by the clubs themselves, eight current Premier League clubs do not conform to these numbers: Old Trafford, Molineux, Villa Park, the City Ground, Craven Cottage, Selhurst Park, Portman Road and Goodison Park.

Old Trafford and Molineux are only shy of the suggested number by two: technically they don’t comply, but they are just guidelines and not designed to be a hard and fast rule. Goodison Park will only be a venue for another few months and Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock comfortably exceeds the suggested number for a stadium of its capacity.

Of the others, Villa Park has 114 wheelchair places against a recommended number of 212, for the City Ground it’s 74 against 180, Craven Cottage is 103 against 165, Selhurst Park is 123 against 168 and Portman Road is 113 against 180.

On the face of things it doesn’t sound great — and indeed is not great — that nearly half the clubs in the richest division in football can’t even get the right number of wheelchair spots in their grounds. But it’s not quite as simple as that.

For a start, wheelchair access is not the only criterion by which we should judge disabled access. Most clubs now offer a range of other facilities: audio descriptive commentary for blind or visually impaired is pretty much standard and free of charge. When contacted by The Athletic, Crystal Palace pointed out that they have two sensory rooms at Selhurst Park and also provide headsets to help visually impaired supporters; Ipswich explained that little work had been done to Portman Road until their recent change of ownership, and they had undertaken “extensive work” in the summer after promotion to the Premier League. Villa also have sensory rooms and are planning to add another 16 wheelchair spaces (which will still leave them well below the recommended number) in the summer, and say they are “continually modernising” their facilities.

The other thing is something the five grounds who don’t comply have in common: they’re all very old, most operating with significant space restrictions. Only one of them has a stand constructed since the first SGSA recommendations were published in 2003 — the Riverside Stand at Fulham — and all of the rest have to work within the restrictions of the surroundings.

Forest and Crystal Palace are both at different stages in constructing new stands to replace some of the old, creaking ones and in both cases are consulting with their disabled fans to improve access.

“Our infrastructure does have limitations,” explains Ericka Williams, Nottingham Forest’s disability access officer. She outlines the problems that the City Ground faces, particularly in the Peter Taylor Stand that dates from the 1960s, which limits the number of wheelchair spaces available but also explains the ways in which the club attempts to mitigate those problems.

“We have a welfare team that works every single matchday. We have temporarily moved the accessible entrance (to avoid excessive congestion for supporters in wheelchairs). There are limitations, however we’re finding reasonable adjustments to alleviate those limitations within the ground.”

There is nuance here. Level Playing Field point out that hosting an England game somewhere other than Wembley will help wheelchair users who then don’t have to deal with travelling to London.

But even so, you could argue that choosing the City Ground doesn’t send a great message. If the FA wanted to showcase England in the Midlands, there are other options. The King Power Stadium in Leicester, for example, has a higher capacity than the City Ground and comfortably complies with the recommended wheelchair guidance.

After being contacted by The Athletic, the FA confirmed they are aware of the number of wheelchair spaces available at the City Ground, but are looking at ways to increase the number of accessible seats for when tickets for the game go on sale. They will also be providing British Sign Language interpretation in the ground for the game. Additionally, they feel that hosting games at venues like the City Ground could help enhance the level of disability access they may provide in the future.

Transport

So you’ve got your ticket. Now you have to get to the stadium.

Dr Rita Egan is a Spurs fan and uses an electric wheelchair. Barring a few irritations, watching football at the new, gleaming Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is a relatively good experience.

Being in the ground is one thing. Getting there is something entirely different.

“If some of these people had to spend just one day going to the Spurs with me, they would be in disbelief,” she tells The Athletic.

Dr Egan lives near Luton. For an non-disabled person using public transport, on a good day you could probably get to Tottenham from Luton in just over an hour. On a match day, give yourself an hour and a half. For someone in Dr Egan’s position, that sort of journey time is a pipe dream.

Rita Egan at a Tottenham game (credit: Rita Egan)

“For a 3pm kick-off, I’d probably leave my house at 10am,” says Dr Egan. “I have to allow for things going wrong.”

And boy can things go wrong. For a start, Luton train station is not fully accessible. If the train happens to be on the right platform that has access from the street, great. If not, unlucky. So Dr Egan has to go to Luton Airport Parkway station, which is accessible. In theory. If the lifts are working. Which they often aren’t.

Then if she can get on to the platform, will there be a train there? Maybe. “Over Christmas there were no trains at all, so they were offering a bus replacement service, but mostly they tend to be coaches not buses and they don’t take wheelchairs. It’s outrageous.”

Let’s say there is a train. Getting on to some of them relies on a ramp being provided, and more importantly relies on a member of staff being available and willing to set it up.

“Even if you arrive on time for the train, they’ll sometimes tell you that you haven’t arrived in enough time for the train. The train is sitting there, but the person in charge of getting the ramp out might not think I’ve arrived at the appropriate time to get on the train.

“I’ve been told I need to be there 15 minutes before the train leaves. I’ve literally been sat there with somebody who could have put the ramp out for me and watched as that train has gone.

“Then of course, if you get upset… disabled travellers aren’t allowed to get upset. If you raise your voice and you say, ‘This isn’t fair, I’m being discriminated against’, they say, ‘Right, that’s it, we don’t have to take care of you anymore because you’re being rude’. I’ve been abandoned on more than one occasion because they don’t like the tone of my voice.”

Once in London, Dr Egan gets a bus. Well, in theory. Buses frequently only have one space suitable for wheelchairs, and pushchairs, which frequently leads to problems.

“I get a lot of abuse on the bus,” says Dr Egan, who was recently left stranded because there was already a wheelchair user on the bus she wanted to board. “That’s the worst of it. On one occasion I called the police because I was being really badly abused.”

This is a broader infrastructure issue rather than one specifically for football. For someone in a wheelchair, getting around using public transport is usually incredibly difficult. You could easily say that this isn’t the clubs’ problem, but it is possible to offer some external support. At Wembley, for example, a specialist bus is laid on to take wheelchair users from the tube station to the stadium. That sort of thing might not be possible everywhere, but it could easily be more widespread.

Facilities at grounds

“Providing facilities for disabled fans isn’t a luxury,” says Level Playing Field chief executive Owain Davies. “It’s a human right.”

But while LPF’s survey outlines the work that still needs to be done, plenty of progress has undoubtedly been made in recent years, as Davies explains.

“The biggest game-changer we saw was the Premier League pledge,” he says, of the promise made by clubs to comply with a set of minimum standards by August 2017. For the most part, clubs were as good as their word; a few didn’t meet it, but some went above and beyond the basics.

“I think it kind of really brought it front and centre that these are the minimum set of standards we expect at venues. The legacy of that is that we’ve seen more wheelchair user spaces put in place, and a greater level of awareness within staffing as well.”

That latter point is crucial, and it would appear that staff support can still be patchy. “Stewards will impact on people,” says Knott. “We have both positive and negative experiences, in terms of what they say to people: sometimes they will ask people to prove they have a non-visible disability. But when they’re great, they’re absolutely great.”

And it’s clear clubs are making more of an effort to accommodate a broader range of disabilities, as Williams explains about the facilities available at Forest.

Forest’s Disabled Supporters Association at the City Ground (credit: Nottingham Forest DSA)

“For our neurodiverse supporters, we have ear defenders. For people with sight problems, if they need an audio descriptive receiver we could provide those to their seats when they get in the grounds. We have weighted blankets for those who struggle with the temperature. We also have a multi-faith and reflection room — if any supporter needs downtime, our safeguarding team can bring them to that room just to have a little bit of quiet time, then they can go back to their seats.”

Navigation

Congratulations, you’ve reached the stadium. Now you have to get in, and navigate your way around it.

At older stadiums, that can be a significant challenge. Ben Smith is a Bournemouth fan who uses a manual wheelchair. He was able-bodied until his 30s, when he developed a condition called Friedreich’s ataxia, which attacks the nervous system. Home games, when he knows the territory and some of the stewards, are usually manageable. But away games are more challenging.

He cites Selhurst Park as a ground at which he’s had problems. Getting there on public transport is an issue: while it is served by three train stations, they’re all at least a 10-minute walk away, and it’s on a hill. The streets can also be pretty uneven. Then inside the ground, the wheelchair places in the away section are at the back of the old Arthur Wait Stand, meaning the view is pretty terrible.

But while the assumption might be that newer grounds are automatically better, that isn’t necessarily the case.

“There are other newer grounds that have restricted views (for the wheelchair places) too,” says Smith. “The Emirates is one. And you know what, I can’t be bothered. Why should I have such a bad view?”

Smith also cites Brentford’s Gtech Stadium as a venue that has plenty to recommend it inside from an access point of view, but getting in can be a challenge. Lifts are provided to enter, but firstly many people who don’t need those lifts queue up to get in so it can take a long time. Those lifts also frequently break down, leaving anyone who can’t use stairs in a pickle.

“There’s no ramp, which is what they should have done. It’s only a few steps for able-bodied supporters, so why not just build a ramp? Inside it’s brilliant, where the concourse is, toilets, all of that. But the journey outside, I don’t think I’d go back again because it was really difficult.”

What now?

The common theme from all the disabled people The Athletic spoke to for this article is that they just want things to be a little bit easier. The world is not set up for disabled people: if you can’t walk, or you’re partially sighted, or have a range of conditions that impair your ability to navigate the world as others might be able to, then life becomes immediately more difficult.

There is no simple switch that can be flicked, not one single thing that can be quickly changed to make things immediately better. It is more about people, about those who don’t have disabilities thinking more, about having the right attitude.

It’s about clubs being proactive, consulting with their disabled supporters associations to prevent problems from occurring, not just fixing them after they have happened. It’s about communication, which can be variable: some are excellent, some not so much.

It’s not about treating people as if they’re different. It’s about helping people so they can be the same.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)