Mestalla will open its doors this Saturday against Mallorca with a capacity of 100%. It will be the first game since March 1, 2020 in which the subscribers will return to their seats, at least those who have renewed it. Mallorca’s visit will be a thermometer to calibrate the degree of uprooting of the fans che for the management of Lim, without forgetting that the economic consequences of the pandemic also has its share of influence in reducing the number of subscribers (about 18%).
Valencia does not detail an exact number of subscribers. He hides that the data is pending of new cancellations and / or registrations that may occur with the return to Mestalla. The range that the club slides ranges from 32,000 to 33,000. The figure is obtained by the 82% of subscribers who resigned (in exchange for offers in future campaigns) to part or all of the compensation to be received by the closed-door parties due to the pandemic in 2019/2020, when there were close to 40,000 subscribers.
Ticket sales are adjusted to the figure of 32,000 / 33,000 subscribers
In this sense, the number of tickets on sale to the general public for the game against Mallorca indicates that the seats reserved for subscribers are around the club’s forecast. Mestalla’s capacity in league matches is around 48,000 people and on Wednesday 7,355 were for sale on the club’s website. But we must also subtract the seats that are lost in different areas of the stadium, which for different reasons do not go on sale or enter the season ticket or do so with limitations (such as the visitor stands about 3000 seats, or the young stands (This will be opened, although only for those subscribers who met the age requirements) and the one reserved for the disabled, tickets are not on sale in any of the private boxes that the stadium has either.
The number of 33,000 subscribers would meet the expectations that the club had for the current season of season tickets, although it is still the worst of the Lim era. In fact, it is in the parameters of the number of subscribers of the 2013/14 campaign, the one before the arrival of the owner of Singapore and the worst of the 21st century, when they renewed their pass 32,000.
According to reports from the club and the League, the most fruitful fertilizer renewal campaigns with Lim were the second year of Nuno Espíritu Santo, with the return to the Champions League (39,194), and the one that began as the third of Marcelino (with about 40,000), after winning the Cup and with the Champions League, although the Asturian only led the team at home one game.
Mestalla’s loyalty was already tested in the Lim era
Mestalla’s loyalty withstood even the turbulent years of Gary Neville, Ayestaran, Prandelli … with 36,190 and 36,454 subscribers respectively in the 20016/17 and 2017/18, in which Valencia did not play European competition. Already the second year of Marcelino, with the return to the Champions League, the pass was taken from him by 39,556 fans. That year, the Centennial, the Mestalla stands had a 81% average occupancy in their league matches, only surpassed by that of Wanda (82%).
Saturday’s will be the first game in which subscribers can access by simply showing their pass. So far, within a coherent policy in its concept adopted by the club to solve capacity limitations due to the pandemic, subscribers had to go through the ticket office to go to the games, although with offers that varied depending on the option they took to compensate for the games behind closed doors.
Out for the prices, for the uprooting, for the schedules or whatever, The 29,000 tickets that went on sale on Real Madrid day were not even sold out, although that night Mestalla presented a good image. But neither in last year’s match against Eibar, in which for the first time up to 5,000 people were allowed, nor in the matches against Getafe and Alavés (maximum of 15,000) nor Athletic Bilbao (of 29,000) was it completed the capacity allowed.