Nine of the 17 teams that were in the top flight last season have seen spectators' numbers drop in the opening weeks of the current campaign, in some cases alarmingly.

Blackburn's home game with Newcastle last Sunday, for example, was watched by 20,725 fans, 9,000 fewer than the same match last season, prompting a call for action from the club's chairman, John Williams.

"We in the Premier League have had 10 great years, a fantastic success story, but we are certainly going through the doldrums now," Williams said. "We have to do something now because by the time you see the bandwagon it's too late."

Officials at the FA Premier League insist it is too early to say whether football is facing a serious crisis after a decade of steady growth, arguing that early season attendances are always volatile.

Football has certainly faced unusual competition for the attention of sports fans this year with a nail-biting cricket series between England and Australia continuing well into September.

But the FAPL has nevertheless decided to convene a meeting of its attendance-working group, headed by chief executive Richard Scudamore, to examine whether anything can be done. "Richard Scudamore is going to reconstitute the working group and it's time to sit down and go through a whole plethora of things that might be done," Williams said.

"The wheels have not come off but the product does need a good service - it needs tweaking rather than major surgery."

Sports minister Richard Caborn is also concerned over the fall in numbers and believes high ticket prices and the amount of football on television are to blame.

"I'm pleased the Premier League have taken this initiative, and the working party are going to have to look at whether clubs are pricing fans out of going to matches.

"One also has to question how much football there is on television and whether it's undermining attendances. I believe there is clear evidence that is the case."

Premiership champions Chelsea had 13,000 empty seats when they began their Champions League campaign against Anderlecht last week -- an embarrassing situation that was attributed to the fact that the cheapest tickets on offer, even for children, were priced at 45 pounds each.

That is nearly four times as much as it costs to watch Germany's biggest club, Bayern Munich. But a Premier League spokesman argued that price was not necessarily as significant a factor as had been suggested.

He said similar concerns had been raised at this stage of the season last year, but that by the end of the year clubs had sold 94.2 percent of their available seats, slightly up on the 2002/03 season and higher than in either Spain and Germany.

"It's very early in the season to take any sort of meaningful analysis from these statistics," the spokesman argued.

While clubs can easily cut ticket prices, it could be harder for them to address the growing perception that Premiership football is becoming too predictable and, in the case of many clubs, too boring.

Chelsea's start to the season -- six games, six wins and no goals conceded -- has highlighted the growing imbalance between the handful of clubs with realistic aspirations to silverware and the rest, all of whom are essentially involved in a battle for survival.

The result has been a growing number of teams adopting midfield-packing tactics that make for fewer goals and fewer thrills for spectators.

Arsenal is one of the exceptions to that rule and their French manager, Arsene Wenger, believes English football is in serious danger of shooting itself in the foot.

"When somebody buys a ticket and spends 50, 60 or 70 pounds, it is not because he wants to be bored," he said. "It is because he wants to enjoy a football game. I feel we all have a responsibility to keep that going."

If the Premier League's attendance group comes up with any proposals to address falling crowd numbers, they will be presented to a meeting of club chairmen in November.