1986 World Cup

Some countries (eg Sweden) have a tradition of following their NT abroad in large numbers, others (eg Spain) don't.

Also there was a lot less money around, all countries, 35 years ago than now, with international travel being much more expensive in real terms. While Mexicans themselves were very poor, so couldn't afford to buy tickets for games involving other countries, while 99% of them had no chance of getting tickets for Mexico games.

And if you were from outside Mexico and had the money, the time and the inclination etc, international travel was all but impossible to organise yourself in those days, meaning you were dependant on buying a package from a specialist company, where you had to pay over the odds for the privilege.

While ticketing distribution systems were primitive compared to today.

It shouldn't be surprising that many stadia were half empty.

 

Clearly you weren't talking about JD's FAI ticketing system

 

Both i would say

Three's always the difference between a sellout and full attendance (people who had tickets and didn't attend).

I always feel some tournaments are just well attended and others aren't. Euro 96 always springs to mind. It holds such a fond place in some people's memories, but one of my abiding memories was seeing stadiums that were usually packed to the rafters with pockets of empty seats. The 1999 Rugby World Cup also had that. Correct me if I'm wrong by I think I read a lot had to do with the pricing tiers. Basically, rather than adjusting games based on category, it was a unified pricing structure for each stage, and people weren't willing to fork out much more than the bottom price for fixtures to attend as neutrals?

Certainly not in those days! Thousands of seats were available.