As many of you are aware, the price of tickets, particularly season tickets, was a matter for much discussion with Paul Aldridge LCFC new Chief Executive (he was previously at West Ham), at the Foxes Trust AGM. With this in mind I thought the attached article (reproduced with kind permission from The Football Supporters’ Federation www.fsf.org.uk) was particularly appropriate to share with you at this time.
Money, Money, Money… The root of all evil
“With the spiralling cost of following your football club these days, finances dictate even the most devoted travelling fans are increasingly being forced to pick and choose their fixtures. But what would it feel like to be priced out altogether? West Ham United fan Michael Cauldwell ponders the unthinkable.
In the heart of North London, but a stones throw away from Holloway Road tube station, stands Arsenal’s gleaming new £390 million Emirates Stadium. A vast, four tiered, dominating piece of architecture, heavily adorned with Nike endorsements, and seating some 60,432 people, it’s a bold statement both of Arsenal’s ambition and their current status within English football. And the privilege of seeing my team play there cost me the princely sum of £46!
With the English game seemingly intent on distancing itself as much as possible from its traditional roots, football in this country is beginning to buckle under the weight of its own greed…..
The harsh and worrying reality for many, myself included, is that with the ever escalating costs involved in following a football team, fans are increasingly being priced out of regularly attending matches. More worrying still is how little those running our national game appear to care. They’d sooner bury their heads in the sand than give a fair hearing to our complaints about astronomical ticket prices, ludicrous kick off times and the general lack of respect with which we’re habitually treated.
Recently, I have increasingly found myself wondering whether football, in its current state, is still something I wish to pay into. However much I love my team (that will never change), however much I love the game, I really struggle to justify paying the sums of money I am being asked to part with to watch Premier League football matches these days.
I despise the whole ‘ bling ‘ culture so recognisable in today’s top earners in the Premiership, and resent the fact I’m helping to fund their lavish lifestyles when I can’t help feeling these people are so far removed from my way of thinking and my way of life. These days, I have nothing whatsoever in common with them, so why do I, like thousands of others, continue to cite them as heroes and travel hundreds of miles every other weekend in order to chant their names?
Last season, I travelled to Palermo to support of my own team, West Ham United during their short-lived UEFA cup campaign. My ticket for the match, against a decent side in Italy’s top division cost me just 15 euros, about £10. Compare that to the £46 I forked out for our New Years Day trip to the Emirates stadium, the £48 I stumped up at Stamford Bridge and the £38 prised out of my pocket at Derby County’s Pride Park.
Fans of Manchester United have even more reason to feel aggrieved than me. Last season, they paid £45 for seats in the away end at Fulham’s Craven Cottage ground. This might not seem unusual, given the current ‘charge what we like’ mentality demonstrated by the majority of Premier League clubs – but travelling Wigan fans paid just £25 for the same seats weeks earlier.
While some clubs are finally beginning to sit up and take notice, it’s not enough. Blackburn, Bolton and Middlesbrough have all seen dwindling attendances at home games and as a result, attempted to entice fans back into the seats by lowering ticket prices, while Wigan charged West Ham United supporters just £15 for last month’s league fixture. Gestures like these should be commended, but we need more of them to reinforce the increasingly frail bridges between clubs and their match-going supporters.
Would West Ham United really care if I was to be priced out of the game by their annual season ticket price hikes? I doubt it. Because they know that if I walked away, there’d be someone right behind me willing to stump up the asking price. Regardless of how much I sing my heart out at the matches, how far I travel to support the team, and whatever I put myself through financially in doing so, I’m just another face in the crowd to them.
Chances are if you’re still reading this you probably don’t need me to tell you my fears for football’s future of the game, as you no doubt harbour your own. But as supporters we need to remember that we do have a collective voice – and we must use it, just as effectively as we do when supporting our teams. We need to continue making ourselves heard and continue to express our discontent at the way our game is being run.
The choice as to whether I continue to attend is currently mine to make – but it won’t be for much longer, if they keep putting the prices up. Football is changing, and not for the better. This was never a sport only to be enjoyed by the wealthy but sadly, that is what is beginning to happen. It’s time to reclaim the game.”
At the AGM one of our members made it clear to Paul Aldridge that ‘we are no West Ham’, Paul stated he was fully aware of that and new that folk would ‘vote with their feet’ if ticket pricing was not right.
We await the pricing announcements for 2008 2009 with much interest.