By Andrew Warshaw
June 20 – The Premier League may be the most popular football product in the world, watched by billions of armchair fans globally, but English supporters are losing patience over inflated ticket costs which price the majority of fans out of the market.
Anger over the rising price of attending matches has grown in recent years – especially for away games – and came to a head last season when Manchester City returned about one third of the 3,000 tickets they were allocated for their league fixture at Arsenal which cost £62.
Yesterday a delegation of fans converged on London with a protest march to make their views known and met with Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore.
Football Supporters Federation chief executive Kevin Miles attended the meeting along with representatives of fans’ groups from Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal.
“I’d like to say we’ve won an immediate reduction in all Premier League ticket prices – that’s not the case but we have been able to express, in the meeting and in terms of the numbers outside, the strength of feeling on the issue of ticket prices,” said Miles afterwards.
“We got a response that was ‘willing to listen’. They shared some of our concerns and agreed to ongoing dialogue to try to come up with some solutions. We regard this as the start of a process rather than the end.”
“We clearly have a lot to do in terms of the clubs. Ultimately the decision-makers within the Premier League are the clubs we support – it’s the clubs that set the prices. We have to make sure the clubs are left with similar clarity of the feelings on this issue.”
The Premier League’s new three-year £5.5billion global television rights deal comes into effect from the start of next season but none of the increased revenue is being passed down to the fans. “There is definitely room for manoeuvre there,” said Miles. “As the meeting showed, even across the bitterest rivalries there is a common feeling on these issues.”
“The turnout on the march and the position articulated by the delegates who went into the meeting successfully brought home the strength of feeling among fans.”
The peaceful march was organised by the Liverpool group Spirit of Shankly and attracted an estimated 400-500 fans. Paul Gardner, secretary of Spirit of Shankly, said: “We’re very pleased. There has been a large number of supporters from all over the country. Hopefully this is the start of people listening to our concerns.”
“The Premier League has started to listen to us. How much they act remains to be seen but it is the start of a process and it shows we have a bit of a momentum now and supporters united can make a difference.”
The Premier League argues that pricing, far higher than in equivalent European leagues, is largely up to the clubs themselves and points out that grounds were at 95% capacity last season. But they have pledged to do more to lower costs. Next season, for instance, Arsenal are introducing a special cut-price section for teenagers.
A Premier League statement said they held a “positive” meeting with the fans and assured the protesters their demands would not be ignored.
“In the meeting we explained that keeping attendances high is our top priority and that encouraging the attendance of locally-based supporters and incentivising away attendance are key parts of that,” the statement said.
“While it is for individual clubs to set their ticket prices, we agreed with the group that we would further encourage stretch pricing at our clubs in order to make Premier League football available to a wide range of supporters. We recognise the commitment of attending fans and look forward to further discussing the matters raised with the Football Supporters’ Federation.”
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