The passage of time is a funny old thing. When football first began being a sport that people wanted to turn up and watch, the size of the people doing the watching was generally quite small in both height and weight. Not that it mattered much, given the fact that only the most wealthy could actually sit down to watch a game.
As the years progressed, more and more stadiums began to have seats for spectators to sit in, but the average body size has grown at a rate that has left the sport all but in its wake.
A recent study predicted that more than half of all adults and a third of young people, including children, would be wither overweight or obese. The result of that is that countless different industries are having to adapt to the new look of the people who are using their services, from airlines through to hospitals.
Sporting arenas are no exception, not least of all because of the fact that many of those attending football matches are working class, with the working classes more likely to be hit by obesity. The question is, can the stadiums adapt?
It Isn’t a New Thing
The tragedy of the obesity problem is that it isn’t something new. In fact, when the World Cup was held in Brazil in 2014, there were 1,675 seats specially reserved for obese people as well as people with disabilities.
That was the first time in history that FIFA had offered tickets specifically designed for obese people, with anyone hoping to qualify for a ticket needing to submit a medical certificate alongside their ticket application, with the medical certificate stating that they had a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher.
Argentina fans go mad when an overweight fan manage to climb on a roof carried by mates, after all crowd go singing “Ole ole fat fat”
(in Spanish it is not used as insult).Those World Cup celebrations you know https://t.co/RnQ3b8vgzd
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) December 19, 2022
It soon became standard practice for football grounds hoping to host major matches to have such seats, partly because of the fact that FIFA’s stadium guidelines make it clear that such things are necessary. They say that a football ground looking to host one of their games needs to have ‘easy access extra-width seating’ available.
They are needed for adults with obesity issues or those that have limited mobility. Such seats need to be as wide as two standard seats and able to support up to 250 kilograms.
New Grounds Can Take This into Account
The good news for the world’s widening population is that stadiums that are being built now can take such requirements into account when being built. The bad news is that not many are likely to do so.
Unless a football club is specially hoping to be able to acquire FIFA competition matches at some point in the future, the desire to get as many seats into a ground as possible is likely to outweigh (no pun intended) the comfort of people suffering from obesity.
@rhiad_ Everton’s new stadium is one of the STEEPEST in the world 😱 #efc ♬ original sound – rhiad_
At the new Everton Stadium on Liverpool’s waterfront, for example, the seats have been built in a compact way to fit as many supporters into the ground as they can do safely. This means that they have almost been built vertically, giving the supporters a feeling of being on top of the action, provided they don’t suffer from vertigo.
Such seating does not take obese supporters into account, however, and the Merseyside club is one of the newest stadiums in the country. If they haven’t bothered catering for larger bodies, what does that tell us?
Older Grounds Will Almost Certainly Never Adapt
The reality is that older football grounds are always going to struggle when it comes to adapting to things such as obesity.
Whilst we all hope that the obesity epidemic turns a corner and more and more people are aided in their desire to lose weight, the truth of the matter is that there is little drive to have football grounds adapt to cope with wider supporters. Anyone who has ever been to one of the older stadiums or an older section of a stadium will know they’re already uncomfortable even if you’re not obese.
People always laugh at this seating view from Everton’s new stadium, but if you ask me it’s the best view you can have, can’t see a bloody thing lol, only who’d seriously want to watch them play football every week 😅
#lfc #Redsky
— Chippy82 (@chippers82.bsky.social) 18 February 2025 at 22:49
The vast majority of stadiums in this country are not in any state to be able to be adapted to cater to wider body frames and the reality is that there is no drive to make it happen from the clubs that own them.
Whilst FIFA’s requirements might suggest that two normal seats be used to house one seat for an obese person, it is difficult to see a world in which football clubs are going to be willing to lose so many seats and the money that they make from them.