High ticket prices for the Manchester City game. Who is to blame? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Walter Broeckx
The supporters of Manchester City are unhappy. They are unhappy about the fact that they have to pay £62 for a ticket for the game next Sunday.
They received 3000 tickets but have returned 912 of them. Tickets that now are being sold to Arsenal supporters.
So this means that some 900 more Gooners have the chance to see Arsenal – Manchester City. I think this is rather good news for the Gooners.
But let us look at the Manchester City supporters and the fact that they refused to come up with the money.
Mr. Kevin Parker, the general secretary of the Manchester City Supporters Club said: “It just shows that football clubs are out of touch with reality. If City supporters are travelling on a supporters’ club coach it will cost £30 per person. That’s £92 before they have even done anything; add in a programme, food, drink and you are looking at £125-£130 per person.”
As I live where the currency is the Euro I calculated this in to euro’s and I came around the price of 150 euro. And that is what I usually pay and that is without the food and drink in fact. I know it is a lot of money but well I don’t mind spending it because it gives me the chance to see my favourite football team. And I pay this a few times in a season and believe me I’m not a rich and wealthy person so I have to make sacrifices to be able to pay this.
Of course I would like to pay less. But maybe the Manchester City supporters could have a look at their own club and blame them for me and them paying too much money to see a game of football at Arsenal.
So how come the ticket prices are going up and up and up? If we don’t take in account the inflation, or the cost of things in London but look instead just at the football aspect of ticket prices, what do we find?
Since the rich owner of Chelsea came along and polluted football with his money the other clubs had to do something. Manchester City sold their soul to the sheikh and from then one there are two teams that can do what they want as money is no issue to them. They have started to inflate transfer prices and have started paying ridiculous wages to attract players from other teams.
The result is that other teams in order to keep their best players have two options. Go along with the crazy wage inflation and pay more and more for their best player in the hope they can keep them. Or they can say no we don’t want to pay this and the players will leave to earn more money elsewhere.
But whatever the option is they are forced to pay more and more. And this is a result of the fact that money is no issue for clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City. Or in fact Man United, but there are different reasons for their ability to pay a lot of money.
So as a result the other clubs have to find a way to raise more money. Sponsoring can be important. But for many clubs the match day income is a very substantial part of staying afloat. In fact for a club like Arsenal the match day income is responsible for around 40% of their total income. In other words the most important way to make money. In the last season our match day income was the most important way to make money. Without that money Arsenal would be in trouble. Big trouble.
But for clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea the match day money in fact are peanuts. If their stadiums were empty it wouldn’t matter one bit for those clubs. If the rich Russian has to stump up £100M or £200M a year… it doesn’t matter for Chelsea. If the sheikh has to stump up £150M or £250M a year… it doesn’t matter for Manchester City. The Russian will pay the bill at the end of the day. Or the sheikh will pay the bill at the end of the week. So match day income is nothing for them. As for other clubs it is their most important way to make an income.
So for Arsenal to stay competitive with those clubs responsible for the explosion of the wages and other costs in football we have no option other than to ask higher prices. In fact by making a third category of matches Arsenal have attempted to make tickets cheaper for some games. And I think the C-category games are rather reasonably priced tickets even for people who don’t have that much money.
But on the other hand the A-category matches have gone up in price. Because in a way it is those teams in the category A (Chelsea-Manchester City and Manchester United) who are mainly responsible for the prices going up. So it is only fair that their supporters must pay more when they come to the finest stadium in England.
Their supporters should not moan at Arsenal for the price of our tickets. No, the supporters of City should go to the sheikh and tell him: look what you are doing with this wage inflation! You are driving the ordinary fan out of football with you overpaying our own players!
The main culprit in the rising ticket prices are Abramovich and sheikh Mansour. So if you want to protest: go to them. And ask them to pay for your ticket. Don’t blame Arsenal for having to compete with the endless cash you get from your owner.
We at Arsenal have to work within our own means and within our own budget. And as we have to try to stay competitive with Manchester City and Chelsea we have to do it with making as much money as we can. If we make a loss the club has to find a way to make up for this. As for City and Chelsea they make incredible losses each year and then the owner just gives more money to cover those losses.
Well for Arsenal it doesn’t work that way so we have to ask more money if you want to attend a game at the Emirates. And if you don’t like that? Fair enough but don’t blame Arsenal that we are driving the ordinary fan out of football. Blame your mega rich owners.
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