Posted on 10th May 2013
Green Football Weekend takes place this Saturday and Sunday, as many clubs and fans join forces to take action on the climate crisis.
The cost of following your team
This is a story from the FSF archive – the FSF and SD merged to become the FSA in 2019.
We’re sure you’re aware that the cost of football is rising; we’ve been banging on about it for some time, after all. Rather than talking in generics, though, it’s sometimes helpful to have a look at some cold, hard figues. The excellent Newcastle United blog nufc.com has done just that and points out that fans who travelled to every away game this season will have forked out an average of £40 a match for their 19 Premier League tickets – a rise of 10% in just one year.
“The price of following Newcastle to all 19 Premier League away games this season was £754 (excluding booking fees), which compares to £686 in the 2011/12 season. And while some clubs such as Wigan (£25) and Stoke City (£30) pegged their prices, others imposed scandalously large increases, notably Manchester City (up £11 to £49) and West Bromwich Albion (up £10 to £39).
“Perhaps the worst value though in the league remains the breathtaking £45 that Norwich City have charged since their promotion in 2011 for some of their worst seats. And away from the Premier League, let’s not forget the criminally over-priced League Cup fixture at Old Trafford when fans were charged £45 on a night when other all Premier League ties slashed admission prices,” says nufc.com.
Now we’re not sure if you’ve noticed, but Newcastle is a long way away from pretty much everywhere. Apart from their local derby with Sunderland, the nearest away fixture for Toon fans this year was a mere 280 mile round-trip to Manchester.
Multiply that across a whole league season, and it’s easy to see how fans are being priced out of following their team when being hit with a double-whammy of increased transport costs and a 10% rise in tickets year-on-year.
While we can’t do anything about wage freezes, or the rising cost of petrol or rail fares, we can make our voices heard on the issue of ticket prices within the football industry. By signing our Twenty’s Plenty petition you will trigger an email to your club, as well as to the relevant league, letting them know the strength of feeling on the matter. More than 8,000 fans have already signed up – join them today. Together we can help make football that little bit more affordable.
Thanks to flickr user James Cridland for the image used in this blog, reproduced under Creative Commons licence.
