Around 73 per cent of supporters polled by a research company on behalf of CentreForum, an independent think-tank aligned to this week's Liberal Democratic conference, said they felt excluded from the game.
Chief executive of Supporters Direct, Dave Boyle, said: "The game seems to be relentlessly pursuing poorer fans and forcing them to make ever greater sacrifices. For all the talk of the glamour and the global impact of the game, of billionaires and now trillionaires, there's a price being paid at the sharp end. That price keeps getting higher and the people who are hurt the most by this are the people in the poorest communities who have traditionally been the bedrock of the game, who have helped build it and make it what it is today."
Of those fans priced out of live football, 77 per cent said they wished to watch more live sport than they do. In addition, 75 per cent said it has become too expensive to attend a live game at a stadium or sports ground.
Unsurprisingly, lower income families were hit the hardest – 79 per cent gave cost as an obstacle to watching live sport, while 60 per cent of this group said they watched less sport than they did a few years ago, and 34 per cent said they never watched live football at a sports ground.
