Our current key issues – The £25 Season Ticket Card Charge, The Fan Advisory Board, Safe Standing, Tickets going to General Sale, The Women’s Game, and Club finances and FFP/PSR …
Current Key Issues
On 4 June we said we’d update you on the current key issues the Trust are looking to tackle. They are:
- The £25 Season Ticket Card Charge
- The Fan Advisory Board
- Safe Standing
- Tickets going to General Sale
- The Women’s Game
- Club finances and Financial Fair Play/Profit and Sustainability Rules
The £25 Card Charge
The policy adopted by our football club to introduce a £25 charge for any season ticket holder wanting to retain a card has been a catastrophic failure in fan engagement. The club have failed in a number of areas:
- It failed to properly engage with the fan groups before going ahead with this charge. Anyone with basic knowledge in marketing and changing ‘customer habits’ should have realised that this was a bad idea.
- The process and the size of the charge is not in line with what other Premier League Clubs are doing.
- Having received a backlash to the charge it then doubled down on the decision with the only concession being that the payments would form a contribution to the Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Foundation.
- The club then failed to make the online process of obtaining a card intuitive. It was so complicated it required the Leicester City Supporters Club to create a fans step-by step guide to renew a season ticket and to order a card version.
Having requested a further meeting about the £25 charge, Union FS, the Official Supporters Club and the Foxes Trust are currently waiting for the club to propose a date, where the Fans Groups will be seeking:
- full transparency on the number of fans who have paid the £25 to access a physical card,
- the number of fans who have requested and qualified for a free physical card, and
- the number of season ticket holders who will access games via using digital tickets for the 24/25 season.
A series of additional questions will also be asked by the Fans Groups.
The Fan Advisory Board (FAB)
A Fans Advisory Board is a requirement for a Premier League Club.
As the proposed legislation on football governance was not passed before the General Election was called, therefore for PL clubs, the structure of FABs are dependent upon the club’s interpretation of the Premier League’s guidance documentation, which adopts a lowest common denominator approach that is less than ideal. The Trust has been in dialogue with the FSA, Premier League and the club since early 2022 regarding the guidance for Fan Engagement Plans and FABs. The Trust’s Engagement Subgroup continues to work with other Leicester City fan groups to ensure that we can persuade the football club to create a FAB that truly covers the broad and diverse church of Leicester City fans.
We want to ensure that fans can have real influence and that there will be ‘meaningful dialogue’ with the club through the FAB, that leads to positive outcomes for the fans.
We have been asking for updates on the FEP and further discussions on the structure of the FAB. with the football club.
Safe Standing
Fans will be aware that many of the Premier League grounds are now embracing safe standing (or rail seating) in their grounds.
While we have heard nothing official from the club about the introduction of safe standing at the King Power Stadium, there is a sense that the club are warming to the idea of dedicating some areas of the ground to it.
At the Trust AGM, there was clear support for safe standing being introduced to the King Power Stadium and we will be looking to discuss this with the club. We believe it is vital that the club engage with fan groups about this so that:
- Appropriate areas are chosen for safe standing to enhance the atmosphere at the ground and to ensure sight lines for those wishing to remain seated to watch the game are not blocked. This is why you will see safe standing in the corners of ground and/or in the upper tiers.
- Introducing safe standing to the King Power will no doubt mean the movement of season ticket holders to different seats … those wanting to move to safe standing areas, and those wishing to move from safe standing to a seated area. We need to ensure that amongst other things, the club incentivise this movement rather than charge for it!
Tickets going to General Sale
One of the successes of club/fan engagement last season was persuading the club to put tickets on general sale for three games.
We are still awaiting promised feedback from the club about how this went and to get information about the demographics of the people who purchased general sale tickets … for example the age profile and just how many were first time attenders … and to know whether it will continue in the future.
Being in the Premier League next season, it is unlikely they’ll be much scope for general sale tickets for league games, but there may be opportunities in the cup competitions.
We also still need information from club about match day ticket prices both for league and for cup games.
The Women’s Game
Whilst attendances continue to rise across the Women’s game with over a million people making their way to watch women’s Super League and Championship games, we are not seeing growth in crowd numbers for Leicester City Women’s home games.
We had an average of over 2,600 last season, whereas top of the tree in attendances was Arsenal with an average just over 30,000. Bristol City, who were relegated last season, had an average just over 7,000 … so there is work to do at Leicester City.
We will be looking to meet with the club in the near future to discuss ways more people can be encouraged to watch the women at the King Power Stadium, and the club are currently running a survey aimed at fans that went to games last season. We urge all that did go to women’s games at the KP to take part in that survey here.
The club finances
At present there is no scope to discuss with the club this matter until legal issues are resolved.
Once they are we will make a request to discuss the position and Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). At present though we have no indication how open the club will be with us, or any of the fan groups, about this matter.
Links you may find useful:
The £25 card charge:
Fan Groups Joint Statement 25 April – https://foxestrust.co.uk/11120/supporters-groups-joint-statement-on-card-charges
Trust Statement on 2 May – https://foxestrust.co.uk/11170/25-charge-not-in-line-with-rest-of-premier-league
Club’s statement on 2 May – https://www.lcfc.com/news/3991820/202425-season-tickets-responding-to-your-feedback?lang=en
The Fan Advisory Board:
Club’s statement about fan engagement 22 March – https://www.lcfc.com/news/3119067/leicester-city-welcomes-premier-league-fan-engagement-standard?lang=en