Accessible seating is sold by a system built to fail

Venues meet their quotas on paper and then hand disabled supporters a booking process nobody would tolerate for a general seat.

Count the accessible spaces in a modern stadium and the number is usually compliant. Try to buy one and you find the actual product. A separate phone line with limited hours. A requirement to post documentation. No online seat map, no resale route, and frequently no way to sit with the three friends you came with, because the companion allowance assumes exactly one.

The gap between the built provision and the sold provision is the whole story, and it is a systems and logistics failure rather than an architectural one. The spaces exist because building regulations and league rules require them. The ticketing platform, meanwhile, was procured to maximise throughput on general sale, and accessible inventory is an exception case bolted onto it, often handled manually by a small team who are excellent and overwhelmed.

That has consequences beyond inconvenience. Manual allocation means no reliable data on demand, which means the venue can honestly report that it never sells out its accessible capacity while dozens of people gave up on hold. Then the next stadium gets designed against that reported demand.

There is a revenue argument that ought to persuade the commercial department, and I am always a little uneasy making it, because access should not require a business case. But the case is strong. A disabled supporter almost always buys at least two tickets, often more, and is among the most loyal renewers a club has, precisely because switching to a different venue means relearning an entire logistics problem.

The fix is unglamorous procurement. Put accessible inventory in the same system as everything else, with a seat map, online booking, flexible companion allocation and a resale route. Several clubs have done it. The work is measured in months and the cost is trivial next to a single squad signing.

The reason it usually does not happen is that no one is measured on it. Attendance targets do not distinguish, and the complaints arrive to a department with no budget authority.

Compliance was never the point. Selling somebody a ticket the way you would sell anyone else one is the point.