Football must listen to fans about outrageous ticket prices?

[WhiteJC]

 
Brian Reade column: Football must listen to fans about outrageous ticket prices - or end up with empty grounds

Many are sick of being patronised about how their atmosphere-creating passion is what makes English football a global phenomenon, then getting nothing in return but buck-passing contempt


Fed up: Fans have had enough of paying so much to watch football

Sky have been hyping it on the same lines as Terrific Top-Drawer Transfer Deadline Day.

Wednesday, June 19.

When the Premier League tells fans the times and dates where they can watch the Greatest Show On Earth next season (or rather the Premier League gives Sky a rough guide which they rip-up and hand back with the real times and dates those games will take place).

But it's not just TV redrawing the fixture list that has ­diminished what used to be a summer ­high-point, when fans began to plan their awaydays for next season. It's the fact that following your team has become so expensive for many of them it's out of the question.

Discontent has been bubbling away for months: Manchester City fans boycotting Arsenal's £62 seats, angry outbursts at being charge £50-£60 at other grounds, rows of upturned plastic in many away ends, and the growing presence of protest banners that warn: 'FOOTBALL IS NOTHING WITHOUT FANS'.

If you're in central London on Wednesday lunchtime you may see that banner, as more than 100 fans march on the Premier League's HQ in Gloucester Place to tell them that enough is enough. That the level of ­exploitation, which would not be tolerated in any other industry, has gone too far.

That as the eye-popping £5.5billion TV deal kicks in (guaranteeing the bottom club in next year's Premier League £60million) it's time to stop taking your lifeblood for granted and help them out.


Football: Working class game, business class prices
Alex Livesey

What is really so impressive about this Football Supporters ­Federation-backed protest is the level of organisation, with ­meetings being held in London and Liverpool, and the range of rival fans taking part.

On Wednesday members of Liverpool's Spirit Of Shankly union will walk side by side with the Manchester United Supporters Trust and Everton's Blue Union. Arsenal Supporters Trust and Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust will share banners along with fans of lower league clubs like Yeovil and Tranmere.

For those who sit in the ­directors' box, media seats and corporates (and anyone else who doesn't pay to get into grounds) this may seem like the whining of ungrateful militants, but the facts shame football.

The Bank of England says prices in Britain have risen by 77 per cent since 1989. Top-tier football ticket prices have gone up 716 per cent. Despite Lord Justice Taylor recommending in the report which ushered in all-seater stadia that clubs should keep price structures in place which didn't penalise those who paid to stand.

Last season alone, away ticket prices (often the worst specs in the ground) went up on average by 10 per cent, as wages and living standards plummeted.


Fans are fed up with sky-high ticket prices
PA

It's been calculated that if clubs passed on to fans the rise in income from the new £5.5bn TV deal (making do with the £3.4bn they already receive) every ticket at every game for the next three years could be cut by £51.30. In other words they could give most of them away.

Fans aren't asking for anything like that, just a fair deal.

Many are sick of being ­patronised about how their atmosphere-creating passion is what makes English football a global phenomenon. Then getting nothing in return but buck-passing contempt.

The Premier League saying it's up to the clubs to cap prices, the clubs saying they can't do it on their own, the PFA saying their members, whose pockets 70 per cent of that new deal will go into, are only getting the market rate.

Wednesday is a long-overdue rallying cry, a shot across the bows, a taster of what might happen if those in power don't listen.

Supporters' groups want an admission that this ­exploitation, especially of the real, hardcore fans who travel to away games and give the grounds the passion they sell across the globe, has to be addressed.

They want to remind the Premier League that their 'product' is nothing without fans. And if those fans keep on being insulted they're not short of ideas on how to damage that product.




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[Arthur]

Agree entirely.

My season ticket went up this season and has done so by £30-£50 every single season since we returned to CC, I guess. While I may not be paying as much as a supporter at Ch***ea, Arsenal or Spurs, with each passing year the gap is narrowing; with each inflation-busting hike, it seems that the Club are intent on eventually charging similar prices to our Champions League battling neighbours.

MAF has done great things for our Club, but my one criticism would be that he has gone back on a pledge he made around the time we arrived in the PL: that he would keep down the cost of watching us play.

[Adam87]

Thank goodness the fans are starting to take a stand because prices are becoming ridiculous as they continue to rise and rise and clubs are basically losing real fans and getting tourists replacing them.
There needs to be limit to prices, I think something like £25 for an adult is reasonable and needs to be enforced.

[Matt Inglis]

Are season tickets in Germany lower because of the rule on 51% fan ownership or is it because of something else?

[Northern Cottager]

Would relegation be such a bad thing if we saw prices drop and the club hopefully see that they need the fans? My view of course. I get so angry when I see the prices for home and away games.

[Nero]

its not the clubs its the agents and there players that take all the money out of the game and drive up prices. If you look at Fulham as a club they aren't making a profit any cash that comes in tend to go towards players wages

[somerset cockernee]

with nearly everyone owning a computer or at least having access to the internet,it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange a nationwide boycott on a given date.....it would be interesting to see all the clubs reactions if nobody turned up one weekend....match of the day,sky sports,espn etc. wouldn't know how to deal with it.........fans have a lot more power than people realise but they don't use it

[Arthur]

its not the clubs its the agents and there players that take all the money out of the game and drive up prices. If you look at Fulham as a club they aren't making a profit any cash that comes in tend to go towards players wages

The Club certainly knew, before it decided next season's ST prices, that it will rake in extra millions from the new Sky TV deal. In the circumstances, a price-freeze was surely the least it could have done for us.

[General]

It's interesting and things will come to a definite point where across the country disgruntled fans will dispute what's going on unless a lot  changes.

Yes people want the club to succeed, and yes, hiking up the prices is a way of doing that but ultimately if the disparity grows between fans average earnings and the price of tickets clubs will start losing out and missing the point.

In my view a sensible club would base/fix it's ticket prices in line or near to the average UK wage, and when I say that I don't mean for the fans they attract or the area the club is based in, football needs to be accessible to all.. You should not and cannot have elitist clubs in the sense that only the richest can go and watch the best teams.

Clubs nowadays need to become more inventive with their revenue streams... Can a club create extra income by creating unafilliated businesses? Why not? Can clubs buy shares in big hedge funds like insurance firms do?

Should clubs be fan run or owned or have a proportional representation on the board of a club irrespective of their professional credentials?

These are all things I think would be interesting discussion topics for football moving into the future and in the long run may need to even happen in order for modern football to survive, not to mention it'd be great to have that wealth created being put into the Economy and creating jobs, creating communities and more...

And, with such an active role of the average man and at such scale perhaps it'd be an interesting way for them to be heard on a bigger scale if business was introduced to such a popular and engaging public sport.

Obviously things would need to be put in place to prevent it from becoming too politicised but isn't that part of the romance of the game, that everyone can appreciate a good player or the way a club is run to the point that it may neutralise the political aspect due to its foundations?

[Alternative]

Buying tickets at high prices is encouraging clubs to ignore the issue.

Germans do not have a short term quick profit outlook. That is reflected in both their economy and the way their football is organised.

[Riversider]

Can see there being hundreds of empty seats in The Hammersmith End and The Putney End for at least one of the matches against one of the top 6,
Even though these are seemingly the most desireable games a likely match day price of £55 or£60 will lead to home fans and tourists not going and more boycotts by the likes of City, who stayed away from Arsenal last season because of price,
Season ticket prices are not to bad (£399 for SL) is great value in my mind, but match day prices of £50 or more are unacceptable !

[cmg]

More than 250,000,000 people play the sport of football. The price of tickets at Premier League grounds in England isn't likely to have much impact on that.

In that area of the sport that has been taken over by commercial interests (often confused with 'Football') normal commercial considerations apply. The only way to get the suppliers to lower their prices is not to pay the higher ones. Standing around outside Tesco with a placard will not to get them to lower the price of their baked beans, buying them from Sainsbury will.

If football clubs can fill their grounds at £50 a pop, they'd be mugs to charge £25. If people lose interest in going to watch PL football, prices (and player rewards) will reduce accordingly. Margaret Thatcher was far from being my favourite person, but her saying, "You can't buck the market", is the plain truth. It's the world we live in.

[EJL]

It doesn't matter how expensive it is, people will still go to football matches.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Isn't there a rule by which tickets must be sold to the regular away fans through their club at no more than that charged for the equivalent areas for home fans?

So the £50-60 seats are those not sold to season ticket holders.

I am not usually one to support the ideas of the market but if people only want to come to matches against the top six then it does not seem unreasonable that the club maximize their return.

[Riversider]

Isn't there a rule by which tickets must be sold to the regular away fans through their club at no more than that charged for the equivalent areas for home fans?

So the £50-60 seats are those not sold to season ticket holders.

I am not usually one to support the ideas of the market but if people only want to come to matches against the top six then it does not seem unreasonable that the club maximize their return.

But that's the point, the likes of City and Man U last season were starting to boycott matches because of prices, and if the likes of Fulham continue to charge the likes of the big 6 £60 for The Putney End, then they must charge that for The Hammersmith End !
A quick look at the online season ticket page reveals that thousands of people have made the choice to not renew their season tickets (as they haven't in Block T of The Riverside and Block J in The Johnny Haynes) I think we will see gaps for the first time for the big 6, whilest the cheaper games against Hull and Stoke etc will sell well, all because of match day prices,
Once I couldn't afford a season ticket, now, I can't afford to go without one.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Isn't there a rule by which tickets must be sold to the regular away fans through their club at no more than that charged for the equivalent areas for home fans?

So the £50-60 seats are those not sold to season ticket holders.

I am not usually one to support the ideas of the market but if people only want to come to matches against the top six then it does not seem unreasonable that the club maximize their return.

But that's the point, the likes of City and Man U last season were starting to boycott matches because of prices, and if the likes of Fulham continue to charge the likes of the big 6 £60 for The Putney End, then they must charge that for The Hammersmith End !
A quick look at the online season ticket page reveals that thousands of people have made the choice to not renew their season tickets (as they haven't in Block T of The Riverside and Block J in The Johnny Haynes) I think we will see gaps for the first time for the big 6, whilest the cheaper games against Hull and Stoke etc will sell well, all because of match day prices,
Once I couldn't afford a season ticket, now, I can't afford to go without one.

I agree with your general point and must have been mistaken about the away ticket issue.

I thought it was the case or at least the plan that away supporters buying through their club would pay the equivalent of the season ticket price whereas `tourist's could be charged anything.

If that is not the case or the plan then I think it should be or, simpler still, the genuine away supporters should pay a maximum of say £25.

[Me-ate-Live, innit??]

The cost in The Riverside for the Liverpool Game was £77.00, I thought that was shocking 
Interesting that Arsenal  away is always a reasonable price and there season ticket are almost twice the cost of ours.

[valdeingruo]

Amazing the vast difference in ticket prices around the globe. I can get a ticket in advance to the Columbus Crew (Mcbride anyone?) for anywhere from $4-20 for decent seats. 29.00 gets me right along the touchline at center circle. As with most us sports the most expensive is $100 for a box seat. I dont know how its like for other teams but it seems to be the similar case league wide.

[JBH]

Would relegation be such a bad thing if we saw prices drop and the club hopefully see that they need the fans? My view of course. I get so angry when I see the prices for home and away games.

Relegation would make no difference, Brighton ST's are more expensive than FFC's and they are in the championship!

[JBH]

Amazing the vast difference in ticket prices around the globe. I can get a ticket in advance to the Columbus Crew (Mcbride anyone?) for anywhere from $4-20 for decent seats. 29.00 gets me right along the touchline at center circle. As with most us sports the most expensive is $100 for a box seat. I dont know how its like for other teams but it seems to be the similar case league wide.

You actually have to pay to watch the MLS?