As a match going Manchester City fan I understand that a consequence of more success is more expense, but what I cannot tolerate is when clubs and the FA are profiteering from our support.
When they come to market the Premier League to try and maximise revenue streams they focus on three things – the excitement of the history of the competition, the great skill of the players and the passionate support of the fans. Without fans filling a stadium and cheering on the play, jeering the opposition and launching comedy chants from the terraces – football is not the same. It is much reduced in an empty stadium. Sure it may look the same on the TV but even the experience of the viewer is not the same.
Fans make games more entertaining. I have said it before – but Clubs and the FA should be subsidising the fans to facilitate attendance at games.
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So it is with a heavy heart that fans approach many matches. We have to balance the cost of following football against the rigours of the rest of our lives. It is not just ticket costs but the prices of travel and food too. As a fan who travels with young children to games the costs can be astronomical and quickly can exceed available income. Manchester City remain a club where many of the hard core established fans come from working class areas of Manchester. The reality of attending each and every game for many is that something has to give – food, other bills – or that every game plunges fans further into debts.
Every year as we start to get to the business end of the football season there come a series of crunch moments where costs really begin to bite. Usually these coalesce around the FA Cup Semi Finals and Champions League knock out games. Soon after we face the horror of waiting to see what may come in relation to season ticket price increases for the following season. That is a moment of real dread for many of us as we tussle with the impossible decision of how to afford to renew again for another year.
The prices set by the FA in relation to the FA Cup Semi Final are borderline immoral. Whilst I can probably just about accept that in the 2 years since our last appearance at Wembley in an FA Cup Semi Final that adult prices have increased by £20 a ticket the lack of a decent concession price for children has ruled many families out of attending the game at all. Child prices are mainly just £10 cheaper than adult and the consequence is that children are priced out of attending what should be an excellent family day out.
Pricing for games should be about encouraging children to attend – they are at the very least the future of the game. They also tend to buy all the merchandise and all the food in the stadium so pricing them out just seems counter intuitive. It is bad enough that we have to suffer the inconvenience and extra cost of even holding the FA Cup Semi Finals at Wembley at all. The finals should be played at Wembley and Semi Finals should be held at neutral grounds. Holding a Semi Final with a 5.30 kick off when there are no trains home after 9.00pm is just demonstrating a disregard for the ordinary fan.
Within days of the ignominy of the Wembley ticket prices match going Manchester City fans were treated with further contempt by Tottenham Hotspur who announced the price for the Champions League Quarter Final would be the double the price for a league game – £60 a ticket. That is just blatant profiteering by Tottenham who have already shown themselves to be a club who do not care about fans by messing City fans around already this season.
The problem with all of that of course is we all know when we are being ripped off for something because it leaves a bad taste. It leaves us with a bad feeling and its obvious both the FA and Tottenham are ripping us off. I hope Manchester City retaliate by making Tottenham fans pay the same price and City fans should be protesting the FA who have shown again that they are not fit to safeguard our beautiful game.
So if there are empty seats at both games – we should celebrate that. We should celebrate that fans have voted with their wallets against blatant profiteering. Of course nothing will change unless all football fans unite together to force change because next season it may well be different clubs who are experiencing these issues. Uniting football fans beyond the tribalism they show on social media would appear to be harder task than negotiating Brexit.
But ultimately pricing forces fans out of attending games. It reduces atmosphere and weakens the very product that the powers that be are hoping to sell back to us via expensive TV packages. We have to continue to rail against the unacceptable rises in prices and make sure our voices are heard loud and clear. We should be unfolding banners criticising the FA and Spurs at the games. It is only through action that we will experience change.