Apart from the fact they've nicked a slogan from a traffic calming initiative, what do people think about the calls from the FSF to cap the price of away tickets at £20? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21181709 I would imagine many clubs would simply reduce the number of away tickets available if they were still able to charge their home fans whatever they liked. I can't see home fans being too happy at the prospect of paying more than visiting fans either. Personally I'd prefer an initiative that tackled ticket pricing across the board rather than just for away supporters.
Isn't that what they hope will happen? Let's suppose clubs do sign up for £20 is plenty for away fans, not likely in my opinion, but suppose they do - home fans would then put pressure on their own clubs to charge the same as away fans. Pressure to which I believe they would yield. You might still have to pay more in the posh seats like the East Stand Upper, but behind the goals you'd get a decent price. That's how I think it would play out anyroad up.
I can see that it might work out how you suggest where the ticket price is already of the order of £20 but if you're currently charging both sets of supporters £62 then there's no way on earth you're going to drop that to £20 across the board, in which case I think it'd be fairer to charge everyone £50, say, than to drop the price to £20 for visiting supporters. On the other hand I imagine clubs that charge that kind of money will be laughing their socks off at the mere idea of this.
I think it should be staggered. £20 for PL & Championship £15 for L1 & L2. And while I understand the need to reduce prices across the board you've got to start somewhere. Small bites and all that.
The two are not mutually exclusive though - what about a commitment to not increase prices by more than the rate of inflation, for example? I'd rather real progress was made on something like that which I think has a chance of succeeding than lots of noise being made about something like this which I think is incredibly unlikely to be adopted by any club where it would actually make any significant difference. I'd be pleased as punch if I was wrong though (I know, I know, if only I was as good looking as punch . . .)
Need to be staggered reduction as you have players on contracts earning lots and their contracts need to be gradually reduced or clubs go into debt.
I think that's fair. But unless something is put in place then budgets won't reduce. If budgets don't reduce wages won't either. In essence, every club needs to go through what we have these past 18 months. We really should be proud of it (despite results)
At the John Dennis evening it was suggested it may soon be cheaper to watch Premiership matches than Championship, League 1 and League 2 football. As a percentage of income, gate receipts are pretty small for Premiership teams, almost to the point that they're insignificant. When there's so much money coming in from Sky and sponsorship and qualifying for Europe, Premiership teams can easily afford to lower their admission prices. For lower league teams gate receipts make up the vast bulk of income. Just surviving is on a knife edge. Dropping their prices may not be something they can afford to do. So it may be the Premiership teams who sign up to such an initiative and the smaller clubs who don't, or simply can't. We'll then have the surreal situation where the higher up the football pyramid you go the cheaper it is to watch. And then where will we be? Who will take their children to watch Oldham or Rochdale when it's cheaper to watch Man City or Man Utd?
I wish there was a lot less money in football. I'd love it if we were in a world where a lot of teams were similar, where most of the league has a chance to win promotion and where most teams of similar quality going for the premier league title.
Agreed. But we're looking for football to be a sport rather than a business........it won't happen will it?
I would hardly call tens of thousands of thousand pound season tickets at the Arsenal etc insignificant! Maybe that says something about my lack of upward mobility!
It's called non-league, but the standard is not so good. Yer pays yer money, yer takes yer choice. My mate follows non-league and loves it, I am not ready for that yet, but people are becoming disenfranchised with a game where money = success. It'll implode at some point and get more egalitarian but who knows when? Premiership grounds are starting to look emptier, maybe they'll even start letting people in for free to create an atmosphere for the TV??
Unfortunately I think we're approaching (possible even reached) a point of no return, where money has diluted football in this country so much that there's no way to regain sanity and make it a sport for the fans again. It's a great shame, because it's a beautiful game that most of us love. But if money continues to ruin the game then who know what will happen to the future of football.
