da lvbet： Things keep going from bad to worse on the ticket pricing front. There was a time when working class fathers could afford to take their children to games, when you didn’t have to own stock in NASA to own a season ticket and when you didn’t have to be a Sheikh to be able to afford a decent seat in a decent stadium. Times change however, and the modern ticket prices often leave a sour taste in the mouth.
da dobrowin： The news now is that Arsenal are going to be the first club to introduce £100+ non-corporate matchday tickets. These tickets will become available sometime early next year, when the VAT on tickets rises to 20%. This will take the cost of the most expensive non-corporate Emirates ticket from £98.50 (as if this wasn’t bad enough) to £100.60.
The fact of the matter is, Arsenal are pricing a huge percentage of their fans out of the market. It’s a sad situation when genuine fans are sidelined by budgetary constraints, but football is a world that is very much dominated by money. The people controlling Arsenal’s finances don’t care who is filling the stadium, as long as it’s filled and they are able to wring as much money out of it as possible. Yes, there’s the recession to contend with, but that doesn’t make the whole saga any less depressing.
The Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation, Malcolm Clarke had this to say regarding Arsenal’s ticket re-pricing: “A £100 ticket in the present climate is ridiculous. It is proof that football is not living in the same world as the rest of us. The game has more money going into it than ever before and it is not helping fans. Football is no longer a game that is readily accessible to all sections of the community.”
It’s true that the footballing world seems to have lost touch with commonsense, decency and reality. Football is no longer the game of the working class. Those who can’t afford tickets are forced to huddle round their TVs (having ordered an expensive Sky Sports package) rather than receive the real experience.
Prior to the announcement that Arsenal’s matchday ticket prices were going to change, Arsenal were already the most expensive team to watch in England on a game-to-game basis. That they’ve raised prices once more highlights the financial disarray that the footballing world is in. I wonder if these extravagances will come back to haunt Premier League clubs in the coming years. More and more high quality live streams of football games are becoming available online for free and they are a real nuisance for the authorities to shut down. I don’t condone the watching of illegal live streams, but by pricing fans out of the market, the masses are more likely to try and find the content for free.
I’d like to think that a change will come and that it will be for the better, but let’s face it, ticket prices will continue to rise and things are likely to go from bad to worse.
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