Three Lions take the top spot among EMA passengers in new airport football shirt league table


The airport has traditionally been a place where football fans love to wear their club colours with pride, donning the latest kit as they jet away to foreign climes.
Supporters seemingly love to showcase their allegiances to fellow passengers, and to locals in their end destination.
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Hide AdBut while an abundance of airport soccer shirts is almost as predictable as Chris Wood finding the back of the net, data reveals it is a little harder to forecast which clubs are most popular in different parts of the country.


The group – which owns Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands Airports – has calculated the most bought football shirts at JD Sports branches in each of its terminals.
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) – the only group with airports in the North, South and Midlands - has released the first ever Departure Lounge League Table….and there are sure to be a few upsets.
East Midlands passengers are clearly a patriotic bunch, with England being the most bought shirt this year, just ahead of Liverpool, then Arsenal and Manchester United in fourth. Premier League fever seemingly hasn’t returned to Leicester yet, with Foxes shirts making third place in 2023 – despite relegation to the Championship – and fourth place in 2022, but the club dropped out the top five this year. Aston Villa is the only Midlands team to make the list.
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Hide AdIn Manchester, the airport is used to welcoming players from both clubs in the city, as well as the likes of Liverpool when they travel abroad for European games and pre-season tours.
But when it comes to fans, it is United that had the tills ringing more than their noisy neighbours, claiming top spot for the past three years, ahead of City in second place on each occasion.
As Euros fever gripped the nation this summer, England shirts took third spot, climbing ahead of Liverpool, which had occupied that position in the prior two years. Everton featured in the top five in 2022 and 2023, but were pipped by Arsenal this year.
Tottenham Hotspur is the nearest Premier League club to London Stansted, with Tottenham Hale one of the stops on the Stansted Express line to Liverpool Street Station. But it is north London rivals Arsenal that have claimed the most-bought-shirts crown in each of the last the years.
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Hide AdSpurs ranked fifth in both 2022 and 2023 but fell off the charts this year. And while Manchester United has long been the butt of rival fans’ jibes, with claims it has more supporters in Essex than in Manchester itself, it seems the tables have turned.
City shirt sales have risen from fourth place in 2022, to second in both 2023 and this year. In fact, so many sky-blue shirts have flown off the shelves in the Essex gateway over the past year that City has taken top spot nationally, when sales at all three MAG airports are combined. Across the group, United was second, England third, Arsenal fourth and Liverpool fifth.
East Midlands Airport’s Commercial Trading Manager Richard Duckworth said: “These results show football fans from the surrounding areas want to show their allegiance to the national team when they go abroad. JD Sports moved into a much larger new unit in our departure lounge earlier this year, so there’s a greater range of options to choose from as people set off on their holidays.”