Great point about the youth sections JF
Season Ticket Renewal Dates
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I've got a half share in a season ticket going spare if anyone is interested. £355.
Written by Gareth Roberts Saturday, 30 March 2013 17:09
LIVERPOOL’S raison d'être used to be winning trophies. These days it feels like that has been superseded by making money.
Last season, Liverpool announced a freeze on season ticket prices. “We have always aimed to ensure that we match our commercial and financial aspirations with the interests of our fans,” said Ian Ayre. “In 2011 we increased prices in line with inflation and the government rise in VAT to 20 per cent, but having reviewed the current UK economic climate and our up and down team performance we felt it important to flatten prices despite UK inflation being around 3.5 per cent.
“Our fans have shown tremendous support for the team this season, at home and away, and with long runs in both the FA Cup and Carling Cup, we wanted to recognise that commitment with this announcement.”
Since then, what’s changed? The team’s performance is still ‘up and down’ and the current economic climate is as depressing as ever. Yet the club has saw fit to raise the prices for over half the seats in Anfield next season. What about the interests of fans now, Ian Ayre?
The club recently announced a new six-tier pricing structure for next season that was encased in a splurge of PR speak. It will allow “more accurate ticket pricing according to seat, location and view” claimed the official website.
As a season ticket holder in The Paddock who from next season will be paying £815 for the privilege of a seat that requires constant standing to view parts of the pitch, I beg to differ. That ‘accurate ticket pricing’ is a rise of almost 10 per cent for many fans. Current inflation levels are less than 3 per cent.
Adult Main Stand season ticket holders paying £780 this season will pay £850 next. And every season ticket in the Main Stand, Paddock and Centenary will also rise to either £815 or £850 depending on how close to the middle of the pitch the seat is. “This move will see some ticket prices reduce while other seats with the best match-day view and location will be priced more appropriately to reflect their position in the stadium and match view,” the official bumf went on.
The ‘some’ is the edges of The Kop and The Annie Road – five blocks. Kop season ticket holders in tier six will pay £15 less next season, while those in the centre of the Kop and The Annie Road will continue to pay £725 and £770 respectively. It hardly makes up for the fact that 23,409 seats – many wooden, many obstructed views, and many with leg room only a smurf would enjoy - are now more expensive.
And it’s not just season ticket holders that will feel the pinch. Some tickets for category A games have smashed through the £50 barrier – sure to signal yet more long-term fans opting for internet streams or the boozer rather than the ground of a weekend.
Those £52 tickets are up from £48 – an 8.3 per cent rise. The sweetener is lower prices for junior season ticket holders in the Annie Road with a 30 per cent reduction from £285 to £200. Under 16s tickets - which are only available in selected Annie Road blocks and have to be purchased with an adult ticket – will also cost from £5 for cat C games to £15 for cat A. That’s great, but let’s not get carried away – it’s still extremely difficult to get a kid to Anfield for anything approaching a reasonable price. The season tickets are already taken up, and competition for the Annie Road upper tickets is high.
So plenty of parents will continue to pay adult prices to take their kids to the match. Or not, as the case may be. The spin aside, the club has done this to make more money – no other reason. And it’s here the wider debate opens up.
Of course, the club has to make money to compete – but at what cost? Shouldn’t the club be more than a capitalist force solely interested in making money out of fans? Liverpool as a cash-obsessed entity with no moral compass or care for the community it operates in is not the Liverpool I remember. It has to make money – most fans get that – and the club was the first to introduce a shirt sponsor for that very reason.
Kit deals, TV deals – that’s how the club should make money. Will the £1.5m or so banked from these latest ticket price rises really make the club hugely competitive on the pitch? It’s a fraction of the wage of a top earning footballer – but it means a hell of a lot more to the man on the street.
Which brings me to the reaction to some of our fans. One forum thread on the internet actually featured a Liverpool fan proposing that the club charge £100 for some tickets – a worrying example of how easily the capitalist pill is swallowed. Many fans happily engage in amateur economics, quoting supply and demand as a justification for the upwards trend in ticket prices. Those willing to protest, to moan, to try to make a difference are sadly in the minority.
This in a city where, according to figures on Liverpool City Council’s website, the average gross weekly wage for full-time workers is £463. The popularity of football in Liverpool first soared when the city’s dockers won the right to a five-and-a-half-day week. The club’s roots are in The Sandon pub, not a Michelin-starred restaurant.
It boils down to how you see football supporters. Is football something you just passively consume? Enjoy when it’s good, boo when it’s not? Go if you can afford it, do something else if you can’t? Maybe it is for a generation. If so, that’s sad. Is a Liverpool match now just an event – like a gig, or a theatre performance? And are we, the fans, just consumers; an arse on a seat, a face in the crowd? Does it matter where we are from, who we are, how old we are and how much time, effort and money we’ve put into supporting Liverpool? It should.
The idea of Liverpool as a local club is increasingly diluted by the club’s aggressive marketing abroad and the Thomas Cook-fuelled packaging of match-day tickets. Yet if the club really wanted to ramp up match-day income the solution was increased capacity. Fans shouldn’t pay for over a decade of inertia on that particular topic. This isn’t a local v out of towners rant, but it’s sad that Everton, Man City and Manchester United can all offer tickets at financially more palatable prices than Liverpool.
Everton’s dearest season ticket is £676. The cheapest next season will be £427 while kids can get one for £149. Manchester City season tickets are as low as £275 and at Man United they range from £532 to £950. Look further afield and the picture becomes even more depressing.
The average price for the cheapest ticket in the Bundesliga is £10.33 and the average cost of the lowest price adult season ticket is £207.22, compared with £28.30 and £467.95 respectively in the English Premier League.
In Serie A the average cost of the lowest price ticket is £14.15 and the average lowest priced season ticket is £164.98. In La Liga it is £24.68 and £232.81. The received wisdom is that a cut in ticket prices is unrealistic and unworkable. But what price supporters that are engaged with the game?
It’s fans that provide the colour, the noise, the backdrop, the songs – without us it’s just a load of millionaires in day-glo boots kicking a ball around. Balance-sheet obsessed executives would never share these views though, would they? It depends where you look.
Take the views of Borussia Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke for example. “Germans want to have that sense of belonging,” he said. “When you give [the supporters] the feeling that they are your customers, you have lost.
"In Germany, we want everybody to feel it is their club, and that is really important. In former times in England I think the relationship between the club and supporters was very strong.
"Our people come to the stadium like they are going to their family. Here, the supporters say: it's ours, it's my club. Here, it is our way to have cheap tickets, so young people can come. We would make €5m more a season if we had seats [as opposed to the safe standing areas behind the goal], but there was no question to do it, because it is our culture.
"In England it is a lot more expensive. Football is more than a business. Everybody told me you cannot play in the Champions League against clubs like Manchester, they have more money.
"We are trying to do it ourselves, in our way. There are a lot of ways to Rome.”
It doesn’t solely fall at the hands of Liverpool to reverse the trend – that’s why plans are afoot for fans to lobby the Premier League. But considering the interests of fans should be more than convenient rhetoric for the club. Liverpool would bank a lot of goodwill if it took a stand against the trend, if it lobbied other clubs on the subject and led the way. The fans have done plenty for the club - the support is even actively marketed as part of the 'brand'. So how about offering us something a return?
Sadly, a simple Google search suggest that it is just rhetoric. When Liverpool made the caveat-laden announcement that the club plans to increase capacity at Anfield, Ian Ayre was asked if the club would use it as an opportunity to make some tickets more affordable. "We're not looking at reducing ticket prices – that's not realistic," was the reply.
Quoting Shankly can often feel trite, such is the frequency the great man’s words are leant upon. But his image and quotations adorn many a wall at Anfield and Melwood and perhaps there is one phrase missing from the minds of the decision makers: "The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life.”
The only thing we’re sharing with the club these days it seems is debt.
From issue 19 of Well Red - on sale April 4.
LIVERPOOL’S raison d'être used to be winning trophies. These days it feels like that has been superseded by making money.
Last season, Liverpool announced a freeze on season ticket prices. “We have always aimed to ensure that we match our commercial and financial aspirations with the interests of our fans,” said Ian Ayre. “In 2011 we increased prices in line with inflation and the government rise in VAT to 20 per cent, but having reviewed the current UK economic climate and our up and down team performance we felt it important to flatten prices despite UK inflation being around 3.5 per cent.
“Our fans have shown tremendous support for the team this season, at home and away, and with long runs in both the FA Cup and Carling Cup, we wanted to recognise that commitment with this announcement.”
Since then, what’s changed? The team’s performance is still ‘up and down’ and the current economic climate is as depressing as ever. Yet the club has saw fit to raise the prices for over half the seats in Anfield next season. What about the interests of fans now, Ian Ayre?
The club recently announced a new six-tier pricing structure for next season that was encased in a splurge of PR speak. It will allow “more accurate ticket pricing according to seat, location and view” claimed the official website.
As a season ticket holder in The Paddock who from next season will be paying £815 for the privilege of a seat that requires constant standing to view parts of the pitch, I beg to differ. That ‘accurate ticket pricing’ is a rise of almost 10 per cent for many fans. Current inflation levels are less than 3 per cent.
Adult Main Stand season ticket holders paying £780 this season will pay £850 next. And every season ticket in the Main Stand, Paddock and Centenary will also rise to either £815 or £850 depending on how close to the middle of the pitch the seat is. “This move will see some ticket prices reduce while other seats with the best match-day view and location will be priced more appropriately to reflect their position in the stadium and match view,” the official bumf went on.
The ‘some’ is the edges of The Kop and The Annie Road – five blocks. Kop season ticket holders in tier six will pay £15 less next season, while those in the centre of the Kop and The Annie Road will continue to pay £725 and £770 respectively. It hardly makes up for the fact that 23,409 seats – many wooden, many obstructed views, and many with leg room only a smurf would enjoy - are now more expensive.
And it’s not just season ticket holders that will feel the pinch. Some tickets for category A games have smashed through the £50 barrier – sure to signal yet more long-term fans opting for internet streams or the boozer rather than the ground of a weekend.
Those £52 tickets are up from £48 – an 8.3 per cent rise. The sweetener is lower prices for junior season ticket holders in the Annie Road with a 30 per cent reduction from £285 to £200. Under 16s tickets - which are only available in selected Annie Road blocks and have to be purchased with an adult ticket – will also cost from £5 for cat C games to £15 for cat A. That’s great, but let’s not get carried away – it’s still extremely difficult to get a kid to Anfield for anything approaching a reasonable price. The season tickets are already taken up, and competition for the Annie Road upper tickets is high.
So plenty of parents will continue to pay adult prices to take their kids to the match. Or not, as the case may be. The spin aside, the club has done this to make more money – no other reason. And it’s here the wider debate opens up.
Of course, the club has to make money to compete – but at what cost? Shouldn’t the club be more than a capitalist force solely interested in making money out of fans? Liverpool as a cash-obsessed entity with no moral compass or care for the community it operates in is not the Liverpool I remember. It has to make money – most fans get that – and the club was the first to introduce a shirt sponsor for that very reason.
Kit deals, TV deals – that’s how the club should make money. Will the £1.5m or so banked from these latest ticket price rises really make the club hugely competitive on the pitch? It’s a fraction of the wage of a top earning footballer – but it means a hell of a lot more to the man on the street.
Which brings me to the reaction to some of our fans. One forum thread on the internet actually featured a Liverpool fan proposing that the club charge £100 for some tickets – a worrying example of how easily the capitalist pill is swallowed. Many fans happily engage in amateur economics, quoting supply and demand as a justification for the upwards trend in ticket prices. Those willing to protest, to moan, to try to make a difference are sadly in the minority.
This in a city where, according to figures on Liverpool City Council’s website, the average gross weekly wage for full-time workers is £463. The popularity of football in Liverpool first soared when the city’s dockers won the right to a five-and-a-half-day week. The club’s roots are in The Sandon pub, not a Michelin-starred restaurant.
It boils down to how you see football supporters. Is football something you just passively consume? Enjoy when it’s good, boo when it’s not? Go if you can afford it, do something else if you can’t? Maybe it is for a generation. If so, that’s sad. Is a Liverpool match now just an event – like a gig, or a theatre performance? And are we, the fans, just consumers; an arse on a seat, a face in the crowd? Does it matter where we are from, who we are, how old we are and how much time, effort and money we’ve put into supporting Liverpool? It should.
The idea of Liverpool as a local club is increasingly diluted by the club’s aggressive marketing abroad and the Thomas Cook-fuelled packaging of match-day tickets. Yet if the club really wanted to ramp up match-day income the solution was increased capacity. Fans shouldn’t pay for over a decade of inertia on that particular topic. This isn’t a local v out of towners rant, but it’s sad that Everton, Man City and Manchester United can all offer tickets at financially more palatable prices than Liverpool.
Everton’s dearest season ticket is £676. The cheapest next season will be £427 while kids can get one for £149. Manchester City season tickets are as low as £275 and at Man United they range from £532 to £950. Look further afield and the picture becomes even more depressing.
The average price for the cheapest ticket in the Bundesliga is £10.33 and the average cost of the lowest price adult season ticket is £207.22, compared with £28.30 and £467.95 respectively in the English Premier League.
In Serie A the average cost of the lowest price ticket is £14.15 and the average lowest priced season ticket is £164.98. In La Liga it is £24.68 and £232.81. The received wisdom is that a cut in ticket prices is unrealistic and unworkable. But what price supporters that are engaged with the game?
It’s fans that provide the colour, the noise, the backdrop, the songs – without us it’s just a load of millionaires in day-glo boots kicking a ball around. Balance-sheet obsessed executives would never share these views though, would they? It depends where you look.
Take the views of Borussia Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke for example. “Germans want to have that sense of belonging,” he said. “When you give [the supporters] the feeling that they are your customers, you have lost.
"In Germany, we want everybody to feel it is their club, and that is really important. In former times in England I think the relationship between the club and supporters was very strong.
"Our people come to the stadium like they are going to their family. Here, the supporters say: it's ours, it's my club. Here, it is our way to have cheap tickets, so young people can come. We would make €5m more a season if we had seats [as opposed to the safe standing areas behind the goal], but there was no question to do it, because it is our culture.
"In England it is a lot more expensive. Football is more than a business. Everybody told me you cannot play in the Champions League against clubs like Manchester, they have more money.
"We are trying to do it ourselves, in our way. There are a lot of ways to Rome.”
It doesn’t solely fall at the hands of Liverpool to reverse the trend – that’s why plans are afoot for fans to lobby the Premier League. But considering the interests of fans should be more than convenient rhetoric for the club. Liverpool would bank a lot of goodwill if it took a stand against the trend, if it lobbied other clubs on the subject and led the way. The fans have done plenty for the club - the support is even actively marketed as part of the 'brand'. So how about offering us something a return?
Sadly, a simple Google search suggest that it is just rhetoric. When Liverpool made the caveat-laden announcement that the club plans to increase capacity at Anfield, Ian Ayre was asked if the club would use it as an opportunity to make some tickets more affordable. "We're not looking at reducing ticket prices – that's not realistic," was the reply.
Quoting Shankly can often feel trite, such is the frequency the great man’s words are leant upon. But his image and quotations adorn many a wall at Anfield and Melwood and perhaps there is one phrase missing from the minds of the decision makers: "The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life.”
The only thing we’re sharing with the club these days it seems is debt.
From issue 19 of Well Red - on sale April 4.
- Status
